Waedliman

Maybe a tragic death helped to create the legend James Dean, I am not certain. Dean's acting never really convinced me and James Franco playing Dean in this TV production doesn't change that. A biopic without mentioning Dean's homosexuality and his bizarre relationship with Monty Clift, how thorough can it be? Developing a character based on growing up as some kind of orphan after the age of 9 is too simplistic, in my opinion because the result is the portray of a young man who is extremely unlikeable. Franco's tendency to overact is once again obvious and the whole production is a lame film which has nothing of interest to add to the myth James Dean.

I really worship Schiller and his plays. He created his Sturm und Drang, when it was right to fight for justice and the right cause. Nothing less is told in Don Carlos or Wilhelm Tell. But if a director thinks he needs to write his own story, then he is destined to fail. And that's what happens here. I am not too picky about the accuracy of the plot but when I tell a story that happens at a certain place, then let it at least look real. The Vierwaldstättersee is turned into a wild sea, there is talking about a gorge in Küssnacht, but there is no such thing. And the Alps hardly ever look Swiss but more Italian or Austrian. The violence is unnecessary and overdone, the acting is wasted on bad dialogue and sometimes overacting and what's with Queen Agnes and the cliffhanger? Really? Who needs that? I don't because I'm definitely not interested.

What was wrong with being gay in 2012? Why did a film like this one have to be so lackluster, boring and depressing? Is it because that's just the way love is in Manhattan, where nobody deserves to be happy? Or is it rather because it's so easy to take all the well-known ingredients out of the sorcerer's hat and present them to the audience as if they were something new? Sorry, but Keep The Lights On is about 20 years too late for that. And not even the two Danish actors can save this lame and slow film, the story of which is dragged on and on in lack of something really substantial to say. The drug angle was not convincing, the toxic relationship see-through right from the beginning. Sorry, and keep dreaming of winning a Teddy Award for this.