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This impeccably performed, engaging take on Kramer vs Kramer delivers a subtly shaded portrait of current gay lifestyles

This poignant drama is practically a remake of Kramer vs Kramer from 1979 – though this time with two divorcing New York-based dads fighting for custody of their kid instead of K2’s traditional pairing of a husband and wife. And like the older Dustin Hoffman-Meryl Streep vehicle, Our Son is a bit soapy and middlebrow, but impeccably performed all-round, led by a trio of terrific turns from Luke Evans and Billy Porter as the two fathers, with winning, winsome support from Christopher Woodley as Owen, their eight-year-old son.

The script, co-written by Peter Nickowitz and director Bill Oliver, delivers an acute, subtly shaded group portrait of current gay lifestyles, from married-with-children types like Nicky (Evans) and Gabriel (Porter), who are monogamous until Gabriel strays without pre-agreement into another’s man’s arms,...

The Pose star plays a divorcing dad in Our Son, but he has other things on his mind – such as getting paid, why his James Baldwin biopic is like Barbie and trying to understand the Israel-Gaza conflict

Billy Porter is known for going big. The 54-year-old actor and singer routinely stole scenes as the drag ball emcee Pray Tell in FX’s drama Pose, a role that won him an Emmy. In Amazon’s 2021 update of Cinderella, he turned the fairy godmother into a fabulous, tough-talking fairy “godmuvva”, as he puts it. But his latest role, in the Bill Oliver-directed relationship drama Our Son, takes a different tack: as Gabriel, a relatively meek stay-at-home dad divorcing his husband, Nicky, (Luke Evans), Porter is required to play small, wounded and, sometimes, bitter, without any of the glitz or glam of his best known characters.

It’s the kind of role...

The BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival has revealed the line-up for its 38th edition which takes place March 13-24.

The programme comprises 57 features across the Hearts, Bodies and Mind strands, four of which are world premieres.

Scroll down for full line-up

World premiering is Karen Knox’s sophomore feature We Forgot To Break Up about a trans musician caught in a love triangle with his bandmates. The Canadian actress and filmmaker’s debut Adult Adoption premiered at Glasgow Film Festival in 2022.

Other world premieres are Kat Rohrer’s Austrian romantic comedy What A Feeling about two women who meet...

Luke Evans and Billy Porter have released a new duet!

The two co-stars debuted their new song “Always Be My Man,” which was written for their new movie Our Son.

Here’s the synopsis for the Bill Oliver-directed movie: ”Nicky (Evans), a book publisher devoted to his work, lives with his husband Gabriel (Porter), a former actor and stay-at-home dad, and their eight year-old son, Owen (Christopher Woodley). Gabriel loves Owen more than anything; Nicky loves Gabriel more than anything. Despite appearances, Gabriel has been dissatisfied with their marriage for some time and files for divorce, leading to a custody battle that forces both of them to confront the changing reality of their love for each other and for their son.”

Keep reading to find out more…

You can download Luke and Billy‘s song “Always Be My Man” off of iTunes here.

Our Son is out in select theaters now.

Our Son, directed by Bill Oliver is an intimate study of a gay couple’s marriage which seems to be on its last legs. The movie studies the complexities of divorce and its impact on a family. The film’s strength had to be its openness to explore the various issues regarding gay parenthood and what happens when the couple decides to divorce which culminates in a fight for custody. Bill Oliver, who co-wrote this film with Peter Nickowitz, is interested in the nitty gritties of the everyday life of a gay couple that struggles with parenting. Our Son is so sincere with its subject that it could be listed with films like Marriage Story, which had a similar story about a divorcing couple. Here, the dynamics of a gay couple are not explored in an exploitative way but are organically weaved into the story to create drama out of the straightforward plot.

From “Kramer vs Kramer” to “Marriage Story,” Hollywood has offered no shortage of compelling tales about how divorce has a way of souring relationships — how, by their very nature, divorces dredge up the ugliest in people, making petty marital grievances balloon into resentful chasms that risk making the very process unbearable in ways both emotional and logistic. With “Our Son,” writer-director Bill Oliver (2018’s “Jonathan”) is adding an LGBTQ entry into that cinematic canon. And while this New York City-set divorce drama offers enough modern tweaks on a well-worn narrative, its emotional resonance remains elusive, muted even.

Nicky and Gabriel (Luke Evans and Billy Porter) have been together for 13 years. They’re not merely a couple. Along with their 8-year-old son, Owen (Christopher Woodley), they’re a family — one with all too neatly divided parenting duties. While Nicky spends his days at the office, trying to sign authors to his publisher,...

Billy Porter wrote the song “Always Be My Man” before he even knew about the film “Our Son,” let alone knew he would star in it, too. The multi-talented performer had wanted to pen a piece with collaborators Joe Killington and Conor Reeves about “the complexity of a relationship,” especially because he was living through a moment in which he was “fighting” with his now ex-husband. When the script for Bill Oliver’s film came his way soon after, the actor felt “the song was the law of attraction for me to receive this moment.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

The desire to write a song for a film in which he also stars is one Porter has felt for a very long time. “I’ve been doing movies since 1999. I’ve been trying to get a song in a movie that I’m in since then. I have been completely dismissed for decades,...

"Why are you doing this? You're destroying everything that we built together?" Vertical has revealed the official trailer for an indie custody drama titled Our Son, from director Bill Oliver. This initially premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, and it also played at the New Hampshire Film Festival this fall. Billy Porter stars as Gabriel, an aspiring artist struggling to find creative & personal spark while caring for the young son he shares with his ambitious partner, Nicky, co-starring Luke Evans. Stress and anxiety flare as their relationship gets to an unrepairable place, forcing the couple to head for a divorce. Now the two must navigate the unenviable position of revealing the news to shared friends & family. Thus begins the journey to find themselves and support their son. The film's cast also includes Robin Weigert, Andrew Rannells, Isaac Powell, Kate Burton, and Phylicia Rashad. So this is pretty...

The trailer for Luke Evans and Billy Porter‘s new movie has been released.

The two actors play divorcing parents battling for custody of their son, played by Christopher Woodley, in Our Son directed by Bill Oliver.

Here’s the synopsis:”Nicky (Evans), a book publisher devoted to his work, lives with his husband Gabriel (Porter), a former actor and stay-at-home dad, and their eight year-old son, Owen. Gabriel loves Owen more than anything; Nicky loves Gabriel more than anything. Despite appearances, Gabriel has been dissatisfied with their marriage for some time and files for divorce, leading to a custody battle that forces both of them to confront the changing reality of their love for each other and for their son.”

Keep reading to find out more…

The movie also stars Robin Weigert, Andrew Rannells, Isaac Powell, and Phylicia Rashad.

If you missed it, Luke, who is openly gay, weighed...

Exclusive: After world premiering at the 2023 Tribeca Festival, the custody battle drama Our Son, starring Billy Porter (Pose), Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast), and newcomer Christopher Woodley, has set release plans with Vertical. Directed by Bill Oliver, from his script written with Peter Nickowitz, the indie is set to hit select theaters December 8th.

Other titles opening that day include Searchlight’s Poor Things starring Emma Stone, Studio Ghibli/Gkids’ The Boy and the Heron, Kino Lorber’s thriller La Syndicaliste, Outsider Pictures doc Elis and Tom, Janus Films’ doc Anselm, and Republic Pictures’ The End We Start From.

Also starring Andrew Rannells (A Simple Favor), Robin Weigert (Deadwood), Kate Burton (Grey’s Anatomy), and Phylicia Rashad (Creed III), Our Son depicts the next step in the zeitgeist of Lgbtqia+ equality: the right to divorce. Married for 13 years, aspiring artist Gabriel (Porter) and his ambitious partner Nicky (Evans) appear to...

There’s a moment in the middle of Bill Oliver’s Our Son where Nicky (Luke Evans) explains to his father (Michael Countryman) that he’s going to court with his estranged husband Gabriel (Billy Porter) over custody of their eight-year-old son. When his hardened father softens a bit and attempts to comfort Nicky, we see their entire history in both men’s faces. Evans’ strained, intense gaze reflects a complicated, reconciled past.

There’s plenty of lovely little moments here. And while Oliver and Peter Nickowitz’s screenplay plays a tad derivative in places, performances are top-notch. Evans and Porter have an oddball, oil-and-water chemistry that fits the relationship well, working off each other with impressive restrain. We’re witness to two very different acting styles in discussion with one another. Oliver is smart to let those scenes drive the bulk of the narrative. Evans has never been better...

“How do people do this?” asks well-to-do New York book publisher Nicky (Luke Evans) in a state of exasperation. Nicky is in the thick of a bitter custody battle for his eight-year-old son Owen (Christopher Woodley), after Gabriel (Billy Porter), his partner of 13 years, has decided to call time on their relationship. It’s a well-worn premise in mainstream cinema — essayed most recently by Noah Baumbach’s acerbic Marriage Story, and still portrayed most famously in Robert Benton’s 1979 weepie Kramer vs. Kramer — but gay cinema has been slow to tackle the issue. With his second movie, the follow-up to the 2018 sci-fi Jonathan, Bill Oliver corrects that oversight with a beautifully judged human drama that dissects a dying marriage with humor and intelligence, drawing out an especially open and moving performance from Porter.

The most noticeable thing about Oliver’s film, which he co-scripted with regular collaborator Peter Nickowitz, is...

Does it count as representational progress when a drama about the fissures that destroy a gay marriage and the ensuing fight for primary custody of the couple’s child is just as bland as any heteronormative version of that sad story?

Bill Oliver’s Our Son boasts solid lead performances from Luke Evans and Billy Porter as the dads whose life together has hit a wall, plus a capable supporting cast stacked with talented theater actors. The movie is tasteful and restrained and sensitively handled at every step. But unless you count one of the men finding post-breakup sexual distraction wrapped around a slinky club kid named Solo (Isaac Powell), there’s too little here to distinguish the film from endless other broken-family dramas that have gone before.

There’s even less to put it on a level with standouts like Kramer vs. Kramer, The Squid and the Whale or Marriage Story.

Billy Porter (Pose) and frequent collaborator Dan McCabe (Fruits of Thy Labor) have been tapped to script a James Baldwin biopic for Byron Allen‘s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures, with the former also to realize his longtime dream of portraying the cultural icon.

The film will be based on the 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut who was a friend of Baldwin’s for 25 years, as well as his assistant.

A gay, African American writer and civil rights activist born in Harlem who wrote critically acclaimed and influential essays, novels, plays and poems, Baldwin’s best-known works include Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk. Lemming’s biography of Baldwin creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled,...

Exclusive: Asante Blackk (When They See Us) and Luis Guzmán (Traffic) have been tapped as the leads for Aristotle Torres’ feature directorial debut Story Ave, for FirstGen Content and Jamie Foxx’s Foxxhole Productions. The film, which has wrapped production in New York, will also star Alex Hibbert (Moonlight), Melvin Gregg (Nine Perfect Strangers), Cassandra Freeman (Monsters and Men) and Coral Peña (For All Mankind).

Based on Torres’ 2018 short of the same name — which was, in turn, based on his life — Story Ave follows a teenage graffiti artist (Blackk) who, after running away from home, holds up an unsuspecting Mta worker (Guzmán) in a robbery gone right that changes their lives forever.

Story Ave is a FirstGen Content and Foxxhole Entertainment Production, in association with Mero Mero Production, The Space Program, and Dark Rabbit Productions. Torres developed the feature through the Sundance Director and Screenwriter Labs,...

Exclusive: Director Bill Oliver has rounded out the cast for his drama Our Son, with Andrew Rannells (Girls5eva), Robin Weigert (American Horror Story) and Kate Burton (Inventing Anna) signing on for roles, along with Phylicia Rashad (This Is Us), Cassandra Freeman (Bel-Air) and Isaac Powell (Dear Evan Hansen).

The recently-wrapped film starring Luke Evans and Billy Porter will follow a divorcing couple fighting for custody of their eight-year-old son. Oliver and Peter Nickowitz wrote the script, with Fernando Loureiro (Frances Ha) and Guilherme Coelho (Fala Tu) producing via their company Tigresa, along with Eric Binns (Lansky), Jennifer 8. Lee (The Price) and Christopher Lin. Alex Peace-Power is serving as co-producer, with CAA Media Finance representing the film’s distribution rights.

Rannells is a Grammy winner and Tony Award nominee whose recent credits include Peacock’s Girls5eva and Showtime’s Black Monday, along with such films as The Boys in the Band and The Prom.

Known worldwide as a dynamic powerhouse performer, first for his Tony-winning role as Lola in “Kinky Boots” and then for his Emmy-winning role as PrayTell in “Pose,” Billy Porter isn’t afraid to take on new challenges. The actor makes his feature directorial debut this month with “Anything’s Possible,” a teen romance about a trans girl experiencing first love. As a longtime member of and advocate for the LGBTQ community, the “Pose” star was a natural fit to helm this story that treats its trans protagonist as any other teenager. Love and joy are central themes in the movie, which never makes an obstacle of the character’s trans-ness.

Shot and set in Porter’s hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the movie stars many of Porter’s friends from his early days in the theater. “Anything’s Possible” was also produced by Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and David Hinojosa, prolific...

Billy Porter (Pose) and Luke Evans (Nine Perfect Strangers) have signed on to star in the drama Our Son, from director Bill Oliver (Jonathan).

The film written by Oliver and Peter Nickowitz will follow a divorcing couple fighting for custody of their 8-year-old son. Fernando Loureiro (Frances Ha) and Guilherme Coelho (Oprhans of Eldorado) will produce via their company, Tigresa, along with Eric Binns (Lansky).

Porter is an actor, singer, director composer and playwright best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Ball scene emcee Pray Tell on FX’s Pose. The actor also recently appeared in Amazon’s live-action remake of Cinderella, CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone and American Horror Story: Apocalypse, also narrating HBO Max’s docuseries, Equal. His theatre credits include the role of Lola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, which he originated in 2013—landing Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as...

Luke Evans and Billy Porter will portray husbands in the upcoming drama “Our Son,” a feature film about spouses going through a divorce and fighting over the custody of their 8-year-old son.

Bill Oliver is directing the movie from a script he co-wrote with Peter Nickowitz. Additional cast members, including the actor who will play their child, have not been announced. “Our Son” is currently in the process of setting a distributor.

Fernando Loureiro and Guilherme Coelho are producing via their company, Tigresa, along with producer Eric Binns.

Porter, an Emmy winner for “Pose,” most recently appeared alongside Camila Cabello in director Kay Cannon’s “Cinderella” remake. On television, he acted on “The Twilight Zone” for CBS All Access, “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” and narrated HBO Max’s “Equal.” Porter is set to make his directorial debut with the high school coming-of-age film “Anything’s Possible” written by Alvaro García Lecuona.

in Jonathan starring Ansel Elgort will be available on Blu-ray January 15th from Well Go USA

In this sci-fi-tinged drama, Ansel Elgort plays two brothers living very separate lives inside the same body. Previously content to live life in shifts with one another, their delicate balance is ruined when they become emotionally involved with the same woman (Suki Waterhouse).

Bonus Features:

Trailers

Ansel Elgort is known for The Fault in Our Stars (2014), Baby Driver (2017), Divergent (2014), and Insurgent (2015).

Patricia Clarkson is known for The Green Mile (1999), The Station Agent (2003), Far from Heaven (2002), and Easy A (2010).

Director Bill Oliver is known for Jonathan (2018), The Debutantes (1996), The Wrong Son (1994), and Guilt (2005).

Check out the great reviews for Jonathan:

An intelligent, absorbing tale –Variety

Unique and provocative –Birth. Movies. Death.

Like a hybrid of Fight Club and Charlie Kaufman, with the former s central confrontation and the latter s tenderness and humanity” –The Verge...

Universal is going limited with Peter Farrelly’s Green Book this weekend. The film, starring Oscar-nominee Viggo Mortensen and Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, is based on the true story of a racist bouncer hired by jazz pianist and composer Don Shirley to drive him through the South during the Jim Crow era. Julian Schnabel’s latest, At Eternity’s Gate, heads out via CBS Films. Starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh, the project came together after a visit by Schnabel and the film’s co-writer to Paris’ Musée D’Orsay.

Cohen Media group is heading out with Venice fest title Shoah: The Four Sisters, the final film of late French writer-director-producer Claude Lanzmann. And Wolfe Releasing is giving Anchor And Hope, which it picked up out of the European Film Market last February, an exclusive start in Los Angeles.

Among other limited releases opening this weekend in theaters are Of Fathers And Sons...

Something isn’t right. Jonathan (Ansel Elgort) is tired despite his routine bordering on monotony being the same for who knows how many years. He wakes at 7:00 am without an alarm, goes for a morning run, and heads to work as a draftsman at an architecture firm run by a man he respects as a genius. He returns home, films a video message to his roommate about the details of his day and any interactions with mutual acquaintances, and goes to sleep … at 3:00 pm. His television pops on as the next day begins to show someone who looks exactly like him with a much more laid-back demeanor. John (also Elgort) talks about playing basketball with friends instead of what happened at work. And he says he’s tired too.

What we quickly discover is that while Jonathan and John are roommates, their apartment isn’t the only domicile shared.

Maybe two is better than one, but not for Ansel Elgort in Jonathan. The Baby Driver actor stars in a sci-fi thriller as two minds stuck in one body whose fragile harmony is shattered over — what else? — a girl. Jonathan Trailer In the feature film debut from director Bill Oliver, Elgort stars as the titular character, a […]

The post ‘Jonathan’ Trailer: Ansel Elgort is Split Between Two Personalities appeared first on /Film.

Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver) stars in an intriguing new film called Jonathan and it has quite a unique promise. The story centers on two brothers whose minds are trapped in the same body and each one of them lives their own separate lives. Things get really awkward when they both end up falling for the same woman. Today we’ve got a trailer for the film to share with you and it looks really good! Here’s the synopsis:

The film tells the story of Jonathan, a successful architect who lives a normal life dictated by a strict routine. Jonathan’s twin brother John, on the other hand, sleeps all day and spends the night secretly socializing. When Jonathan discovers that John has a secret girlfriend, Elena, he forces John to end things and then starts a new relationship Elena out of curiosity and jealousy. John ultimately catches wind of the affair,...

"Two Minds. One Body. No Way Out." Well Go USA has released an official trailer for an indie drama titled Jonathan, a "sci-fi-tinged" story about two people stuck inside of one body. Ansel Elgort stars in this as two brothers living separate lives. Jonathan leaves the office everyday at noon. When he gets home, he goes to sleep. Every morning he wakes up and there is a breakfast prepared for him along with a video telling him about the second part of his day. It all gets disrupted when they both fall for the same woman. Jonathan also stars Suki Waterhouse, Patricia Clarkson, Matt Bomer, and Douglas Hodge. This looks quite cool, it seems complicated to balance both of these characters and still craft a coherent story. This looks like a clever film and I'm curious to check it out, despite not hearing much (good or bad) about it. Watch below.

The first trailer and poster reveal for the sci-fi drama Jonathan has been unveiled, showcasing the nuanced performances of Ansel Elgort Suki Waterhouse and two-time Emmy winner Patricia Clarkson.

Elgort will also portray “Tony” in the upcoming West Side Story remake by Steven Spielberg.

The film tells the story of Jonathan, a successful architect who lives a normal life dictated by a strict routine. Jonathan’s twin brother John, on the other hand, sleeps all day and spends the night secretly socializing. When Jonathan discovers that John has a secret girlfriend, Elena, he forces John to end things and then starts a new relationship Elena out of curiosity and jealousy. John ultimately catches wind of the affair, which puts his relationship with his brother at serious risk and forces Jonathan to seek the help of Dr.

Jonathan adheres to a strict schedule: up by 7Am, breakfast, run, work until noon and then home for dinner before going to bed at what seems like an ungodly early hour. It's a routine he adheres to as if his life depends on it and it sort of does because in addition to breakfast, Jonathan's mornings also include watching a video update of himself, giving a full rundown of what he was up to overnight.

Though the basic premise of Bill Oliver's feature film debut Jonathan is set-up early on, it's some time before the audience is made fully aware of the circumstances of Jonathan's reserved existence.

Instead, we follow the day-to-day of Jonathan and get glimpses, first solely on video and later in person, of John's night time life and its clear that the two couldn't be more d...

Well Go USA has bought North American theatrical rights to Bill Oliver’s science-fiction drama “Jonathan,” starring Ansel Elgort, Suki Waterhouse and Patricia Clarkson.

The deal was announced Tuesday, prior the Sept. 26 West Coast premiere of “Jonathan” at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Well Go plans to release the film in theaters and on demand Nov. 16.

“Jonathan” was produced by Randy Manis and Ricky Tollman and executive produced by Jim Reeve, Robert Halmi and Neal Dodson. The deal was negotiated by Doris Pfardrescher and Dylan Marchetti for Well Go USA with CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers.

Elgort plays two brothers living very separate lives inside the same body. Previously content to live life in shifts with one another, their delicate balance is ruined when they become emotionally involved with the same woman, portrayed by Waterhouse. The film premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

“It took a team...

Ansel Elgort is arguably the hottest young male Millennial actor, already known for his performances as the male lead in the melodrama The Fault in our Stars and his title role in the action-thriller Baby Driver, not to mention his supporting roles in the Divergent series. In the sci-fi drama Jonathan, he doubles down in the title role as a young man not with a split personality but quite literally two personalities. In his feature directorial debut Bill Oliver imagines a near future in which a rare condition leaves two distinct persons trapped inside one body. A digital brain implant, […]

The post Jonathan movie review: Sci-fi role(s) for Ansel Elgort appeared first on Monsters and Critics.

After starring in Edgar Wright’s automobile action ballet Bady Driver, Ansel Elgort has another intriguing feature lined up: Jonathan, which is making its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.

Similar to Baby’s attention span, if you want to win Elgort over with an offer, a filmmaker truly has to have something special. That was the case with AFI alum Bill Oliver and this sci-fi drama he co-wrote and helmed in his feature directorial debut.

Says Elgort, “I read through the script in one go and I’m not a great reader. If a script doesn’t grab me, I don’t read it, I sort of read the first few pages and these just kept turning. I had my girlfriend in the other room, and friends over and everything, and I was easily distracted, but the script kept grabbing me.”

In the film, Elgort plays...

Ansel Elgort broke hearts with “The Fault in Our Stars.” Now the teen idol is twisting minds with “Jonathan,” a low-budget sci-fi head fake of a film that also boasts a bold performance from Elgort as twin brothers, John and Jonathan. One, John, is a care-free ladies man, while the other, Jonathan, is a buttoned-up and slightly priggish architect. The film debuted at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Elgort is riding high. He headlined “Baby Driver,” an off-beat heist film that was a breakout hit last year, and scored the lead role of Theo in the big screen adaptation of Donna Tartt’s acclaimed best-seller “The Goldfinch.” In his spare time, he also makes electronic dance music under the stage name Ansolo.

Elgort spoke with Variety about his foray into indie filmmaking, Hollywood’s sexual harassment crisis, and the challenges of embodying emotionally damaged characters such as Theo and Jonathan.

Ansel Elgort plays a dual role in “Jonathan,” but it takes quite a while before we learn just what the parameters of that dual role are. Every day, Elgort’s Jonathan watches a video message that was recorded by a guy who looks just like him. It would seem that these two are twin brothers, but the plot of this movie is much more convoluted than that.

“Jonathan” is a first narrative feature from director Bill Oliver, who co-wrote the script with Gregory Davis and Peter Nickowitz. It is filmed in a precise and organized and deliberately sterile way, with repeated shots of Elgort’s Jonathan preparing food in his Patrick Bateman-like apartment and going to work at an architecture firm, where he can only stay a set period of time.

Elgort’s Jonathan is a fussbudget in dorky clothes who wears his hair in an unflattering part, and he holds himself stiffly and disapprovingly. This is a contrast to his brother, who is not seen outside of a TV screen where Jonathan watches the messages they record for each other. It turns out that this brother’s name is John, and John is a much looser guy, more of a people person, and popular with women.

Watch Video: Ansel Elgort, Timothée Chalamet Weigh in on Who Was More Popular at Laguardia High School

Oliver seems to be trying to get at an intriguing subject here: the way that personality and charisma can make someone socially successful regardless of looks. But this theme gets buried under a premise that proves very unwieldy. The first third of “Jonathan” goes by without any specific explanation about what is going on with these brothers and why they can only live during certain parts of the day. (Jonathan gets the daylight hours while John has to be the night owl.) This wait gets frustrating, and this frustration is not alleviated when the explanation finally comes.

John has been seeing a girl named Elena (Suki Waterhouse), even though the brothers have a rule that they are not supposed to have girlfriends. Jonathan is so curious about Elena that he makes contact with her during the day, and he finally tells her the full details of his situation.

It turns out that Jonathan and John share the same body, and there was even a third brother inside this one body when this three-personality baby was abandoned by its mother, but this third brother was terminated by Dr. Mina Nariman (Patricia Clarkson), who took charge of their development as children and still controls the situation via a chip she installed in their neck to keep their lives separate. By the time that Elgort explains the chip in his neck, “Jonathan” has gone from needlessly complicated to absurd.

Also Read: Matt Smith to Play Charles Manson in 'Charlie Says' From 'American Psycho' Director

Jonathan has sex for the first time with Elena, and at this point “Jonathan” feels like David Cronenberg’s “Dead Ringers” (1988) as performed by cute young high-school kids. “Dead Ringers” is a masterpiece, and so any film treading in the same territory is probably going to suffer by comparison, especially a movie like this, which is so scrupulously lacking in perversity and psychological detail.

Oliver makes sure that every scene in “Jonathan” is slow, earnest, tidy, and very cautious, and he pulls back from anything that might be too dramatic. In a crucial confrontation scene between Elgort and Clarkson, Oliver moves the camera steadily away from them, and this epitomizes his method here.

Also Read: Patricia Clarkson to Star in Gillian Flynn's HBO Drama 'Sharp Objects'

Clarkson can make just about any dialogue touching and believable just by lingering over it with that earthy voice of hers, but even she is tested by scenes where she is made to comfort Jonathan while seeming to pine for John. The direction this material should go is fairly obvious, but Oliver is too careful to really embrace the implications of what this story seems to want to be about.

“Jonathan” would be immeasurably improved if Oliver had really entered more wholeheartedly into “Dead Ringers” terrain and jettisoned Waterhouse’s sweet young Elena so that he could make Clarkson’s Dr. Mina the one who is sleeping with and toying with both brothers. (Just imagine the Freudian charge of that, and the way that the ever-naughty Clarkson might have carried it.) Instead, Oliver has opted for a very conventional film that relies far too much on its concept and far too little on character.

Read original story ‘Jonathan’ Film Review: Ansel Elgort’s a Dud Ringer in Tedious Twin Tale At TheWrap...

"I wish there were two of me" is the eternal cry of the overstressed, the work/life unbalanced, those with no time to pursue their dreams. Their fantasies bear little resemblance to the life endured by the title character in Bill Oliver's Jonathan, a young man whose body holds two distinct personalities in it and, consequently, affords each man only half a life. The kind of no-fx sci-fi that has brightened festival schedules in recent years, the debut feature succeeds thanks to a credibly bifurcated performance by star Ansel Elgort. That name should help attract attention to a movie whose quiet...

Alex Winter directing upcoming Frank Zappa doc with Oscar-winning producer Glen Zipper.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Frank Zappa

London-based Great Point Media has bolstered its sales slate ahead of this month’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.

The company has picked up Zappa, Alex Winter’s upcoming documentary about the pioneering musician Frank Zappa. Currently in pre-production, the feature is from Glen Zipper, the Oscar-winning producer of American Football doc Undefeated.

Director Winter is known for his acting roles as Ted in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. His previous filmmaking credits include docs Downloaded and Deep Web.

Previously titled Who The F*@% Is Frank Zappa, the project set a record on crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter in 2016 by raising more than $1.2m, the most ever for a documentary.

Currently in pre-production, Zappa will have unprecedented access to a vault of archive material (music, films, photography) about the musician...

Exclusive: Insurgent star Suki Waterhouse has boarded the Bill Oliver-helmed sci-fi drama Jonathan opposite Ansel Elgort and Patricia Clarkson. Jonathan, which is shooting, follows a guy with a routine day: He leaves the office at noon and sleeps during the second half of his day. But every morning he wakes up, there is a breakfast prepared for him along with a video telling him about the second part of his day. The British fashion model-actress will play Elena, the love…...

Exclusive: Patricia Clarkson has joined the cast of Jonanthan, the Bill Oliver-helmed indie that stars Ansel Elgort as twin brothers with a strange relationship. Clarkson will play Dr. Mina Nariman, their controlling doctor. Production is set to start later this month. Elgort plays both Jonathan and his twin brother John, who live by a strict set of rules including no lies and no romantic relationships. When Jonathan finds out John has fallen in love with Elena, his…...

Ansel Elgort is a star on the rise. Still fresh from his breakout turn in indie tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars, the up-and-comer has already teed up roles in both Billionaire Boys Club and Edgar Wright’s ensemble drama Baby Driver. Now, Elgort has been tapped to headline Bill Oliver’s new feature Jonathan.

Deadline has the scoop, revealing that Oliver will direct from a script he penned alongside Peter Nickowitz. Randy Manis and Ricky Tollman, meanwhile, are attached to produce with Neal Dodson executive producing.

But perhaps the most intriguing facet of Jonathan is that, in the vein of the Tom Hardy-fronted Legend, it presents a dual role for Ansel Elgort, who will portray two wildly different twin brothers. That means Bill Oliver’s feature will tell the story of “a successful architect who lives a normal life dictated by a strict routine. Jonathan’s twin brother John,...

With Charlie Hunnam set to star in the remake of the Steve McQueen 1973 flick Papillon, Mr. Robot star Rami Malek is now in talks to play opposite the actor, Deadline reports. The drama will be directed by Michael Noer, off a script penned by Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners). Malek would take the role originally played by Dustin Hoffman, while Hunnam is filling the shoes of Steve McQueen in the story about two criminals who must become friends as they both begin sentences in a horrible prison located on Devil’s Island — and their friendship buds into a plan to escape. Malek has been making waves with his performance on USA’s Mr. Robot, which occupies a lot of the actor’s work time. The remake of Papillon is set to commence principal photography this September.

After his brutal and quite excellent directorial debut Bone Tomahawk, author and screenwriter S. Craig Zahler...

Exclusive: Ansel Elgort is set to star in Jonathan, a fast-mobilizing independent film. It will be directed by Bill Oliver (Guilt), who wrote the script with Peter Nickowitz. Randy Manis and Ricky Tollman are producing and Neal Dodson is exec producing. Elgort, who broke through in The Fault in Our Stars and next stars in Billionaire Boys Club and Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, will play both male lead roles here. The film tells the story of Jonathan, a successful architect…...