Além dos Muros

According to the director, this is his "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", a film about what happens when a madly-in-love couple is forcibly separated by a bad turn of events. But it's really much more than that.

It's about the power dynamics in a relationship, and how they shift over time. It's about dominance and submission. It's about making choices. It's about freedom or the lack thereof.

What keeps it from being overly ponderous (though it does raise lots of questions) is way it focuses on the specifics of a rather dysfunctional relationship between a needy, waif-like, seemingly helpless young man desperate to be taken care of, and a seemingly more together toughened-by- life older man who at first doesn't take him seriously but then falls hard for his boyish, coquettish charm.

And then they're separated and they and we discover that they're not entirely who they seem to be and everything shifts.

The cinematography is suitably gritty and sharp, while the acting of the two leads is superb. These are very flawed characters but we don't care and we fall in love with them anyway, the way they fall in love with each other.

The ending is realistic and a bit sad, but not tragic. We all come away a little wiser, but just a little, as this is not Hollywood, after all, thank god.

One of the best TRUE-Love stories I've seen in movies! The film felt very real, and that's why I ADORED IT!!! Everything was fantastic... From the origin and discovery of love, the heartbreak and then the rebirth of love.

These are the types of movies that make you believe in true-love, and not a far-fetched version of it, a very tangible one.

I truly recommend this feature. I'm really glad that I found it!!! And the script was very good too, the acting was marvelous, that you really believe in them.

:D 10/10.

I think Drector/writer David Lambert wrote and directed this weird story to appeal to those that have fun masturbating to needy and cruel fantasies!

Look at the cast - two beautiful men both lost and directionless here in this story. They find each other and it's a downward spiral from there. One is so needy he gives into self destructive behavior just for attention and the other one is just incomprehensible. Just like this movie!

There are other reviews here that praise this movie with words like - beautiful, adore, realistic, brilliant. I failed to see that. I found the movie, first, a bit silly, and second, wandering.

I watched the movie with no much expectation! It turned out to be one of my favorite movies. There are only four characters in the movie ! All of them did their part really well, Especially Paulo. The ending was very beautifully directed i had tears in my eyes ! This movie explains how complicated love is. Even though you want someone, it is not easy to be with him. As the other reviewer said,the story is not at all similar to "Weekend". Only Similarity is, the main characters meeting in a bar for the first time! other than that i cannot see any similarity in the story. Beyond the walls is much complicated love story.

I have to disagree with the other review here (and at the time I write this, there's only one), Weekend is a much better movie than Beyond the Walls. I see the similarities, but this is far more complex than Weekend.

Not nuanced, mind you, complex. With Weekend, I felt I really knew the two principle characters well, warts and all. They were lifelike and real.

These characters are somewhat one-dimensional. Despite the life changes made by Paolo, the young guy, I didn't really understand him fully. More of a back story on him might have helped me understand how he goes from conflicted, to needy, to clingy, to obsessed, to victim, to detached, all in the space of a year. Which is entirely possible, but unlikely in a first-world early-20s-something.

And, evidently, he only knows two gay people, both older men. We only see him in the first scene with contemporaries (and they abandon him, so are they really friends?) except for his girlfriend. And all we learn about their relationship is that she's finally had enough of his sleeping with men.

And, I know it sounds petty, but it bothered me that I didn't know how Paolo was earning a living. That isn't revealed until half-way into the movie. I found it a distraction, wondering if it was a plot point. He uses an inhaler frequently in the first part of the movie, so I wondered if he was on disability. We don't see the inhaler in the second part of the movie, so maybe that's meant to signify he's more comfortable with the life choices he's made? If so, that's a LOT to hang on an inhaler.

His first lover, Ilir, is a little more sketched out, but I wasn't convinced that he was the kind of person who would have succumbed so quickly to the petulance and coquetry of Paolo, particularly when the aforementioned's "charms" were at least partly motivated by his needing a place to stay. The second lover, the owner of a gay sex shop, is about as flat a character as you'll ever meet.

If you sketch out the plot line on paper, it makes sense, and is plausible. But I don't think the movie makes the sell. Still, I wasn't bored, and was curious to see how things resolved. I did not quite buy the ending, but again, I could see how it might happen.

This is an above-average movie, and many may like it. But for me, it was no Weekend. By far.