machapuchare

Two boys in quite different, but somehow equally dire situations meet in Morocco, from where they start a road trip with a stolen caravan through Spain into France, where William wants to find his brother and Gyllen wants to meet his father. Some lighthearted moments and overall somewhat optimistic messaging; amazing portrayal of friendship and nowadays sadly quite universal problems of loss, loneliness, isolation and the resulting despair.

Sometimes comes within a whisker of being just a tad too clichée, but - imo - it always manages to avoid being too corny. Great acting and nice cinematography.

Starts as a sensible and moving family story, but completely looses its focus later on. Pointless additions to the storyline lead to unnecessary subplots that diminish the powerful main story and it's nicely fleshed-out conflicts. The result feels deeply unsatisfying, like a missed chance.

I really liked the actor's performances and the - initially - well-written characters though.

While the premise might sound absurd and cheap, the film manages to deliver a honest and thoughtful - and really quite deep - exploration of human love and sensuality. The characters are well-crafted and quite believable, the film focuses on, and plot is driven by the characters' emotions, their wishes and their vulnerabilities. Through that, the comical set-up becomes a believable and moving tale set in a paradisaical scenery.

It's structured like a classic Greek tragedy, at almost exactly mid-point things take a turn for the worse and paradise is lost. Everything moves down to a catastrophe, through which catharsis can be achieved. At some point the film almost feels like queer cinema - there's a lot of similarity to it's classical tropes: the 'forbidden' nature of their relationships slashes deep wounds into the main characters, their suffering and their struggles to cope, directs the viewer's (or at least my) anger back onto society and it's oppressive rules.

As a viewer I could emphatise and symphatise with all four main characters. The acting is really good, especially Naomi Watts and Xavier Samuel are superb.

This film is absolutely more than a 'chick-flick for older women', at least if that description is meant in any way pejoratively. It's 2 hours well spent.