|
|
Your Learning Zone - Just a Question of Love
|
List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $17.36
Your Save: $ 9.59 ( 36% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Picture This
Starring: Cyrille Thouvenin, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié, Eva Darlan, Danièle Denie, Idwig Stephane
Directed By: Christian Faure
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781893410640
Format: AC-3
ISBN: 1893410641
Label: Picture This
Manufacturer: Picture This
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Picture This
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2005-05-24
Running Time: 88
Studio: Picture This
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing, unbelievable.
Comment: After reading such good reviews here, I was seriously disappointed in this movie. It's the weakest of the seven gay romances I've watched recently (even weaker than Latter Days, which says a lot).
I didn't see any convincing chemistry between the two lead characters, although Stéphan Guérin-Tillié is one of those straight French actors who play gay very convincingly. His Cédric is mature, sensible and intensely masculine, with a kind of controlled, smoldering fire that's profoundly attractive. I can see why just about anybody would fall for him.
But Cyrille Thouvenin's Laurent is just a pain in the [...], a spoiled, petulant, completely selfish 20-something baby who sulks and throws tantrums at the drop of a hat and is generally about as unattractive as a grown man can be. I don't believe for a minute that a cool guy like Cédric would look twice at Laurent, much less hang around after the first tantrum. If Laurent were supposed to be in his early teens, his behavior might be a little easier to take, but he's supposed to be close to finishing university, an age when men who throw tantrums are seriously unattractive regardless of sexual orientation. He spouts pretentious poetry and misses his dead cousin--so what? That's no excuse for being such a jerk. He's just a big baby, and he's not even cute.
Another French movie with a spoiled young coming-outer is "À cause d'un garçon" (You'll Get Over It), in which Julien Baumgartner plays a similarly self-centered seventeen-year-old. But in addition to being a lot younger and better behaved, Baumgartner's character has many other redeeming qualities, including gentleness, a genuinely haunting melancholy, and tons of charm; overall he's a much more complex and interesting person. Laurent, in this movie, has no positive qualities at all that I can see.
There are also big problems with the movie's credibility. Cédric is supposed to be such an eminent research botanist that the French government let him work from home, but his lab looks like a middle-school science project, and you sense that the pseudo-scientific dialog sounds ridiculous even to the actors speaking it. Then when Cédric and Laurent have a cutesy water fight in the lab using random containers of variously-colored liquids, and end up splashing their way to bed through the flooded lab floor, any remaining credibility vanishes.
Another particularly incredible development is when Laurent's parents don't even recognize Cédric when he comes to visit them, just a few weeks after an ominous surprise visit to the family pharmacy that traumatized Laurent, took place with his mother watching curiously, and ignited yet another tantrum when Laurent got back to the lab. Maybe Mom's thick glasses are supposed to be the excuse, but they don't seem much of a handicap in other scenes.
Most of the supporting characters aren't much better than Laurent is. They're one-dimensional and cartoonish, played by not very good actors. Laurent's parents and "girlfriend" are nearly as obnoxious and shallow as Laurent is, so maybe it just runs in the family.
The only supporting character who's interesting at all is Cédric's mother Emma, played beautifully by Eva Darlan. When she alone has the good sense to cut through the drama-queen crap and tell the truth, her reward is Laurent's biggest tantrum ever and his insistence at the end of the movie that she go into therapy. I think that demand is supposed to be cute, but for me it was just the nail that sealed the coffin on this unpalatable mess of a movie. I'd give it one star, but I'm saving that for a really awful movie, which--thanks only to Guérin-Tillié and Darlan--this one barely misses being.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Comment: Finally a wonderful gay romance that is actually about gay romance. The two main characters are gorgeous, their chemistry is sizzling, and though it is about family conflict that is not the main focus of the plot. It's actually about the men. A complete contrast to the other French 'gay romance' film Times Have Been Better, which sucked! If you're trying to chose between them, pick this one. Very satisfying all around.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lives Up To The Hype
Comment: I purchased this film sight unseen based on the rave customer reviews I read here, and I must say I was not let down. I don't have much to add to the excellent recommendations that appear here, except to say that I found myself tearing up a few times, exhilarated at some points and frustrated in others. And when the end credits were rolling, I felt thoroughly satisfied and highly amused.
This thoughtful and well-acted film presented many sides to the subject of coming out to your parents, especially when you know for a fact that they will not react well. As others have noted, all of the characters were multi-dimensional, and there was not a bad performance among the whole cast. The conflicts were lifelike and the writer presented a multitude of opinions, all of which made me think I was viewing real people instead of a film. See it with someone special. Better yet, see it with your family, especially if they have had a hard time accepting who you are.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good film!
Comment: I had heard about this film some time ago. I found here and decided to purchase it. I have to say the film imo is good-not fantasitic as I was expecting. I did like the way they portrayed Laurent's parents reaction was very real. I don't know how I feel about the ending? Perhaps I could say it left me with the hope that things would get better with time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Merci beaucoup!
Comment: This humane, intelligent French drama was made by, and appeared in prime time on, France 2. It inspired thousands of letters praising its most deserving young stars and their story. Try to imagine such a positive, thought-provoking drama on - much less made by - American broadcast television which is simply about an impassioned gay relationship (and no one gets sick or dies!).
Cyrille Thouvenin (Confusion of Genders) stars as angry, deeply-closeted Laurent. He is unwilling to come out to his parents because they are so virulently homophobic, and Laurent can't bear the thought of losing them. He lives with his best friend Carole who goes along with the fiction that she is his girlfriend for their benefit.
Everything changes when Laurent meets Cedric (sexy Stephan Guerin-Tillie), but they're both a bit cranky and get off to a noisy, antagonistic start. Thinking better of it, sparks soon fly and they revel in an exuberant, spirited fling. The delight the two beautiful actors project is authentic and gratifying.
The problem is that Cedric is quite aboveboard about his sexuality and pressures (bullies?) the younger man into coming out. Laurent is truculent, uncommunicative, and defiant. Carole is tired of the charade and has a love of her own to nurture. Everyone wants Laurent out, but he is immobilized. When Cedric's mother impulsively reveals the boys' secret, their world comes apart. How everyone deals with the fallout is the core of the narrative.
This transcends being just another 'gay' film. It is about learning how to love for all concerned: gay, straight, old or young. As for Laurent and Cedric, rarely on film has "I love you" been uttered with more poignancy.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Just a Question of Love follows the whirlwind romance of two young men in different stages of coming out. The film paints a heartbreaking portrait of the difficulties that befall a relationship when one man lives proudly out of the closet, while the other has created a double life to please his parents.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
