Boy Meets Boy

After sharing a kiss while inside a 24-hour dance club, Berliner Johannes and weekend visitor Harry meet outside, and Johannes offers to show Harry around, on Harry's last day in town. In between various incidents, they explore their pasts, their dreams, and their divergent life philosophies, even if they both enjoy dancing in a music booth to an instrumental Ode to Joy..

This film reminds me of Paris: 05:59: Theo and Hugo, except that it is 2/3rd the length, and the incidents more random, so it gets a lower rating. I did like the double bookends: the (ironically selected) song Please Don't Go for the opening dance sequence and final credits, and within that the bathroom scenes.

I was very happy to see this in digital format, at the Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ film festival. Not only could I rewind / re-view, but I turned on the optional extra subtitles (for when Johannes was not speaking German) and found out more of what was going on. By also paying close attention to the end credits, I finally figured out Harry's opening scene.

This movie is clearly influenced by before sunrise and call me by your name but unfortunately that doesn't make the movie good! The conversations although realistic(I've had multiple conversations like the ones in the movie with complete strangers) are very boring. So that makes the script boring. It's very sad because before sunrise and cmbyn are two of my favourite movies and in my opinion they are both a 10 in their genres and I thought that a movie that has taken parts from these movies would be at least watchable but no. I cringed throughout the whole thing. Very superficial characters, with superficial points of views and when the movie is over at last instead of thinking about all the topics introduced you are left wondering if there was any point to get at all. What can I say maybe I missed it!

PS also what the hell is going on with the character that is supposed to be a dancer? The actor clearly cannot dance to save his life, I laughed throughout the opening scene! Why didn't anyone think to hire a body double?

It is easy to figure out why this movie is so bad. It is not about acting (which was surprisingly very good), nor is it about its intention to bring to the front some really important issues faced by the gay communities around the world. It is about the storyline or, better, the lack of it. There was nothing to keep you interested, there was no feeling, no mystery, no romance, nothing. Just plain boredom.

I expected a cute little romance film as I got into the film and well into the middle point. Nice summer day in Berlin, two cute young men hang around and flirt together before the time one of them should catch his plane back home.

But as their day and conversation progress and their mutual attraction grows, they get to reevaluate what they thought they believed and knew about their life.

Now, the transition from the light hearted flirt to seriousness is a bit too sudden, and the conversation IS bit pretentious... but these boys are young, and I'm pretty sure I talked with the same kind of hollow assurance and misplaced cynicism when I was young. The point is they get to learn something about themselves through the encounter, that was neither a big romance nor a quick shag.

It's not a masterpiece, a lot could have been better, from the script to acting, but it's worth a watch especially if you're young and gay.

This was actually much better that I'd anticipated, given the current rating here.

It almost felt like a gay, modern version of the before sunrise/sunset/midnight trilogy where two people are passing like ships in the night and looking, perhaps even without realising, for some meaning or understanding in their lives.

The two actors did have chemistry and that is what kept me engaged throughout. It felt almost like a loveletter to the backstreets of Berlin, and a chance for these two relative strangers, with such different backstories, to connect with someone in a way that they had never really done in their lives.

It didn't actually ever feel forced or fake to me; just felt almost like one of those days in your life that happen too infrequently, when you know something could happen. I won't ruin the plot for people, but overall I found it worth the watch and would recommend.