Review: A Home at the End of the World (**)

A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


Michael Mayer's A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a contrived slice of gay
life story which would have been completely ignored were it not for Colin
Farrell's performance as Bobby Morrow, the story's confused lead. With
long, stringy hair, Farrell (PHONE BOOTH) gets to show us his feminine,
sensitive side as a gay guy who doesn't think he's really gay, a recurring
theme with the other gay guys in the movie.



Robin Wright Penn plays Clare, an older, free-spirited hippie-type who lives
with Jonathan Glover (Dallas Roberts), Bobby's long-time boyfriend from high
school. Leaving no cliché unturned, the script has Clare complaining about
Bobby to Jonathan that all the good-looking men are gay. Jonathan corrects
her, by claiming that "Bobby's not gay. Well, it's hard to say exactly what
Bobby is." In a movie filled with one-dimensional characters, Penn's Clare
is the least convincing of them all. Clare has zero chemistry with
Jonathan, the guy she lives with and is planning to produce a family with,
and she has no connection to anyone else either.



The first of the movie, set when Bobby is in grade school and again in high
school, features other actors playing Bobby. There is a total disconnect
between these younger Bobbies and the grown one played by Farrell. The
younger ones are bold and confident while Farrell's Bobby is so insecure,
unsure and wimpy that he appears almost too frightened to speak. The high
school Bobby, who goes to live with Jonathan's family after his parents die,
has a high old time. As Jonathan's liberal mother Alice, Sissy Spacek
delights in baking cookies and sharing long afternoons of smoking pot with
the boys -- but they are under strict orders not to tell her husband.



I never believed a minute of the story. And I never cared.



A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD runs 1:36. It is rated R for "strong drug
content, sexuality, nudity, language and a disturbing accident" and would be
acceptable for older teenagers.



The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.



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