Gerontophilia

"Gerontophilia" was a very difficult film for me to watch and I am sure it would be for most viewers. This isn't a criticism--just a statement about the sort of topics you'll see addressed in this odd film. It's very challenging and isn't the sort of movie I could strongly recommend nor is it something for kids, but it is worth seeing if you are a patient sort of person and don't mind being shocked.

This Canadian film is a creepy story about a young man who works with the elderly. Why is it creepy? Well, over time Lake finds that he's become sexually attracted towards some of the elderly men in his care...and this isn't really the creepy part. However, his interest soon goes far beyond a passing fancy. Lake begins to not only fantasize about them sexually but even peeks at a naked man while he's sleeping and he pleasures himself while doing so. Clearly, this is NOT just about sexual attraction but crosses over the border...a very uncomfortable one indeed. After all, even if his love interest were younger or a woman, such behavior would most likely get Lake arrested! Fortunately, the film doesn't dwell on this too long...but I am sure that many viewers will be turned off by this. It's a shame really, as the film seemed to have too many interesting ideas but all together it just made the film confusing. In other words, having a young guy fall in love with an elderly person (male or female) could have been very good in a film that isn't a comedy like Harold and Maude. After all, while a taboo, what is wrong with a May-December romance? Most films that broach the topic give us the message that the younger partner must be a woman, so it is nice for a young guy to fall in love with an elderly person in a movie. But the film goes far beyond just love...and that is what is troubling.

The bottom line is that while I did think the plot was overly complicated and muddled by Lake being what many would consider a sex offender at the nursing home, the film dares to be different. More importantly, however, the film has some excellent things going for it. The music is just terrific and really works well with the movie. The directing (aside from a bad edit where Lake inexplicably changes sides of the bed in the same scene without getting up) is also very sweet and deliberate. I'd really like to see more from the director and I wouldn't object to a gay or gerontological theme- -just not these AND a creepy guy who goes way beyond friendship or even love.

Bruce LaBruce has a special fantasy. Here it is: a disarmingly beautiful 18-year old boy falls passionately in love with him NOT because he promises to put the kid in a movie but because he's old and ugly. BECAUSE he's old and ugly, not in spite of the fact that he's old and ugly.

Now, I'm neither young nor gorgeous myself, and I (and every other old gay man) may have a fantasy just like that tucked away inside of me. The difference is that I didn't make a move about mine. Despite what LaBruce thinks, watching an old man's erotic fantasy acted out on screen is not entertaining to other people.

On top of that basic flaw, this movie's screenplay is very, very, very stupid. As a comedy it's never funny; as a romance it's completely absurd; and as an erotic fantasy it's just embarrassing. The basic story, of a young man falling in love with a much older man, could be made into a really wonderful movie, but not in Bruce LaBruce's talentless, narcissistic ham fists.

Pier-Gabriel Lajoie is breathtakingly beautiful, but he can't act. Looking at him, with the sound off, and skipping every single scene in which he does not appear alone, is all that could make this turkey watchable. That movie would be about five minutes long.

I think it helps a lot to be an old man to fully appreciate "Gerontophilia" in all its affective and humane dimension. In a condition as old age, in which we become invisible (something Mr. Peabody expresses in one scene), if invisibility does have its advantages at times, in others it becomes very dramatic because our dilemmas seem to have no space in the young people's perception and, as the evaluation given to this motion picture demonstrates, they only perceive half of its implications. A lovely little movie, maybe quite necessary, in which a young Canadian man who works in a geriatric clinic discovers his attraction to very old men and that it is not only a sexual attraction, but that he is capable of feeling love for them. A rarity in audiovisual production from all over the world and a highly welcome one.

Charming, sensitive, non-judgmental and comic portrayal of what is often seen as an awkward subject. Watching this and I wonder why. It's great to see this level of filmmaking from Bruce LaBruce and look forward to more from him, however charming his gay zombies and anarchists are! As already mentioned this is like a modern day Harold & Maude, which can only be a good comparison.

Explores younger men who prefer older men sexually. Well done, good scritpt good acting, good direction etc. Not sure why the low rating.