Latter Days (Unrated Edition)

A movie about growing as a person, along with one's ability to change. Tender and moving making you want everything to work out for them. Everyone should own this movie!!!

Religious persecution by radical sects against gay people is a serious topic so I wish it had been covered by serious people. The script writers and the cast should have been used on a movie with a more shallow theme that needed less thought and concern put into it. I hope some day a competent and talented director revisits this topic and does a better job of handling it.

Latter Days is a chick flick, except that in the place of overly hormonal young valley girls we have two gay kids, one of whom is totally hot, by the way. The only decent member of the cast was the actress who played the Mormon kid's mother. All the rest of the actors and actresses were horrible. The screen play was contrived - at times laughable and at times cringe-inducing. Most of the movie's attempts to create humor fall completely flat.

It still has some campy moments, and suffers some dialog problems like 99% of made-for-gay movies, but it's a major improvement over most gay sexploitation/soft porn movies.

This movie was suggested by my twin brother (who is not biologically related to me). Knowing how campy and "gay" he can be, I judged this movie not by its merit, but by association. Shallow of me, but in Aaron (our Mormon protagonist) sort of way. I did buy it, however, and it's not money wasted. I guess I have to re-evaluate my twin brother.

The movie started with this guy named Christian, who was your campy, sex-driven, party-going pretty boy. He lured a straight guy into bed with him..., and he wore jock strap under his skin-tight hot pants with lace enclosure (details count...). He is everything scandalous, and he flames.

Later, we are introduced with this guy who is straight laced (on his shoes) and very religious. What does this guy and that flamboyant gay paradigm have in common? Nothing, except they are both gay.
They eventually fell in love with each other.

That's the movie's premise. Very cute. Never would work in real life (and I am still not convinced it would). However, it's how a movie unfolds that's central to the success of any movie. In term of structure, it has a fluffy happy opening, but ends with something that sinks one's heart. In a sense, it's a nice road trip of the heart.

The cast includes Steve Sandvoss (plays Aaron, our Mormon boy) and Wesley Ramsey (plays Chris, our party boy). Wesley Ramsey really looks more Ryan Renolds than Will from Will and Grace, which is how the DVD cover art was able to deceive me. In any case, the Mormon boy, in my opinion, looks much better on my eyes. The smile is convincingly innocent, pure and adorable. You can almost ignore the fact he has a pretty good body to boost.

Acting wise, Sandvoss also triumphed in that department (where did they find this guy?). We also have Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of Third Rock from the Sun fame), who was also excellent (but his lines was someone not very plausible, and his character lacked dimension; faults went to the script, not him). I have a feeling if the script were better, some of the characters would be more interesting. Instead, they were standard issues of cliche characters. The restaurant owner's characterization and/or acting was particularly bad.

I don't know why the movie was shot in 60 frames/sec or some such. A standard 24 frames/sec would give it a more movie-like experience, instead of that home-made movie feel. It's not shot by a hand-held video cam (it was shot in digital). It does have some editing that's borderline on good amateur and mainstream professional quality. Nevertheless, the choice of reel was just... distracting.

The story did flow. If I were to nitpick, it's really that I don't think Mormon boy's punishment by his church was cruel enough. Realistically, in his situation, everything should tumble down on him. I read it somewhere, in order to make a good tragedy, you'd have to be a sadist. Everything terrible must fall on the good character, and I did not see that happened on our cute and innocent Aaron. When his mother finally slapped him I felt, "it's about time."

BTW, that scene was very nice. I think the director failed to shot the reaction shot of Aaron's face when he was slapped. I think that's the best performance coming from Sandvoss in this movie. It reminded me of someone I love dearly. That's a genuine cry of a man who could no longer cover up his true feeling.

Anyways, one star for the movie itself, the rest of the three stars go to Steve Sandvoss. This movie will not pull it off if it wasn't saved by our absolutely adorable actor and his performance.

Latter Days is the story of 19-year-old Elder Aaron Davis, a sexually confused Mormon missionary who moves into an apartment complex in West Hollywood with a fellow group of missionaries. There he meets a neighbor, Christian, who, on a bet, tries to seduce him. When Christian exposes Davis' secret desire, Davis rejects Christian for being shallow and empty. As each boy's reality is shattered, the two are drawn into a passionate romance that risks destroying their lives. Audiences, young and old and straight and gay, have been moved to tears by this beautiful story of the transformational power of love and family.

I could relate to this movie a little being I was a Preachers kid and lived in small towns. I think this movie brings out so many emotions and I wish alot of parents could see this and realize just how special their kids are no matter who they are.