Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Here's another DVD I'll definitely be buying when it comes out later this year. "A Home at the end of the World" is one of the most frustrating, yet also one of the most rewarding, films I've seen in a while. Fright wigs aside, it does a masterful job of evoking the late `60s in America. People have a habit of dying around 14-year-old Bobby Morrow: first his brother (in the film's most visually arresting scene), then his mother, and then his father. This sets up a situation wherein Bobby must move in with the family of his best friend from school, Jonathan Glover. When the two boys sleep together, even before Bobby moves in permanently, Jonathan puts the moves on him, and, wondrously, Bobby gets involved. The two are inseparable until Jonathan's mother (played by the luminous Sissy Spacek) discovers them in a VW together and Jonathan pulls away from Bobby. Jonathan ultimately moves to New York, but Bobby stays behind with the Glovers, until, eight years later, daddy Glover decides that it's time Bobby move out on his own. Bobby follows Jonathan to New York, only to be rejected once again by his childhood friend, at which point he turns to Jonathan's roommate, the free-spirited Clare, for solace. What follows is fairly predictable if you've seen any movies about gay relationships in the late seventies and early eighties, but the part that rings true is the self-destructive relationship between the male leads. Jonathan wants no one but Bobby, but can't appreciate that he already has him. Bobby wants Jonathan, but is willing to "settle" for a relationship with Clare, especially when it comes with the promise of a family and a child. Jonathan throws himself into a promiscuous lifestyle and pays the price all movie homosexuals must pay for sleeping around. But Bobby is still there. And the question becomes, why? Is Bobby fundamentally gay or bi or neuter? Does it matter? Bobby, as played by Colin Farrell, is infinitely vulnerable (his younger avatar, Eric Smith, seems much more of an adult than the childlike Farrell); Bobby just wants a family. He loves the people who are willing to fill that void in his life. These include Jonathan, Clare, their daughter, and the Glovers. His pansexuality is a product of need. I kind of like this concept. Before Oscar Wilde, people for the most part had sex. They didn't worry about labels, because the labels didn't exist. Sodomy was a behavior disapproved of by the church, but the implication is that people engaged in it anyway. So who were these sodomites? They were probably people like Bobby, who were just looking for love. It's the Jonathans of this world who need the labels, and it's the labels that lead to heartbreak. Thanks are due to novelist and screenwriter Michael ("The Hours") Cunningham for reminding us of this basic fact. Further kudos are due to a soundtrack that includes Laura Nyro, Leonard Cohen, and Dusty Springfield.