Scene 1: 1999. A scantily clad woman awakens on a deserted beach. Her bag is gone, so she borrows some coins from a lady exiting a pastie shop and runs to a payphone and calls someone, but gets a busy signal. This must be Britain or Australia.
Cut to close-ups of the chest, biceps, and face of a sleazy-looking dude as he dances around to "Bandido," a 2003 song by Ana Barbara. He appears to be working on choreography in his garage, moving too fast to get a good screen shot.
Knock on the door. He yells in Serbian, "Don't come in!", then goes out to yell at his little brother (Peter Rayias), but Bro is in his room. It must have been his creepy Mom: "I forgot to wash your clothes again, my handsome man, leer, leer."
Finally The Girl gets through: "What the f*ck, Kol!"
"Sorry, my brother was using the computer."
She starts stammering. This guy was going to take her to his boat in Saint Basil (no such town), and she took some speed. It's very important to know that he was a little older, but not some rando. The next thing she knew, she was waking up on a beach, with no money, her bag gone, no idea what happened, and no idea where she is. And they have the Big Community Center Thing in two hours. She has obviously been roofied, sexually assaulted, and robbed, but nothing more is said about it.
They use a street sign to deduce that she's in Altoona, an hour's drive away. She wants Kol to go to her friend Tori's house, pick up her dress for the Big Civic Center Thing, then come get her.
"But I don't have a car."
"Borrow your mom's."
"I can't. She's being creepy. Can you call someone else with a car to come get you?"
"But if they have a car, they probably have a life, so they won't be home." Wouldn't people who have lives be out late the night before, so still asleep at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning? "Wait -- I know a complete loser who everybody hates because he's so lame. He has no life, so he'll be home at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning -- my brother Adam!" Har-har.
Scene 2: Kol runs through the neighborhood to his Girlfriend's friend, now named Jaya: "You have to call this complete loser who everybody hates. I can't do it because if his Mom answers, she'll recognize my voice and ask where The Girl is."
Tori/Jaya calls Brother Adam: "This sleazy gay guy burst in and insisted that I call you." Wait -- your girlfriend's best friend doesn't know you? And her brother doesn't, either? How long have you been dating?
"I'm not gay, but..." He grabs the phone. "Adam, you have to drive me to pick up your sister Ebony, an hour away, and then drive us to the Civic Center, another hour, and we have to be there in an hour and a half."
He grabs the dress, and while waiting, hears more about Brother Adam: "Loser. Voted most likely to bomb the school. Some girls tried to f*ck him, but were unsuccessful."
Scene 3: Adam arrives (Thom Green, left. I think he's sexing with a femme guy, not a girl). He doesn't think they can make it to Altoona and back in time for "your emergency dance class." The camera moves around too much to get a good screenshot.
"It's the Dance Finals dude! Super-important!" Not that important. The movie is not about Kol's dancing career.
Kol asks him to stop the car so he can throw up. This illness is not mentioned again.
"Maybe you could go to the finals next year?"
"My Girlfriend Ebony applied to NIDA in Sydney, so she won't be around." The National Institute of Dramatic Arts.
He laughs. "You think she's going to NIDA? She's a terrible actor." He ridicules her performance as Lady Macbeth.
Their conversation last for 21 minutes. I can't cover everything they discuss, but the most interesting topics are:1. Jorge Luis Borges -- one of my favorite writers.
"The Library of Babel," containing every possible combination of letters in a book.
"The Circular Ruins," where a man dreams a world that is dreaming him.
"The Garden of Forking Paths," a labyrinth where every decision results in infinite parallel worlds.
2. Tomorrow Kol is flying back to Serbia for his birthday, January 1st, 2000, the day of Y2K fears. Y2K is never mentioned again.
3. Kol mentions how much he hates his "psycho uncle." Adam suggests that he could murder the uncle for Kol, as in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train. This is never mentioned again.
4. Adam mentions that he's gay. Kol says he doesn't have a problem with gay people, a standard straight guy response in the 1990s.
Scene 4: They pick up Girlfriend Ebony in Altoona, but it's too late -- they're going to miss the competition. This upsets her, so she lets loose with a string of homophobic slurs -- directed at Kol, the straight guy.
"Don't worry about it,' Adam says. "Next fall you'll be...har har...at NIDA...har har...because of your...har har...incredible acting talent."
This upsets her even more. They pull the car over so she can scream at them without causing an accident. She didn't get into NIDA, so the Dance Competition was her only hope! Now her life has been destroyed forever, because the guys were too stupid to make a two hour drive in 1 1/2 hours! And she has to call her mother and lie about where she was last night!
While she's calling her mother on a pay phone, Kol notices that Adam has his shirt off. He gawks. Maybe he's gay after all.
More after the break.
Scene 5: More conversations. They drop by a shopping mall, We see the horrible industrial blight of their town..
Scene 6: Back home, the guys spend the night together (only their faces show during the bedroom scene). In the morning, Adam drops Kol off at the airport. He's only planning to go to Serbia for a birthday visit, but he never returns, because that's what happens sometimes. They don't stay in contact.
Scene 7: Nine years later, Ex-Girlfriend Ebony is getting married, and she asks Kol to be in the wedding party. (The groom, Toby Derrick, ss moving around too much to get a good screenshot.)
Scene 8: At the reception, seated with other people, Kol and Adam glare at each other. Then they go outside for a heart to heart. Adam notes that he's still a total loser, and asks Kol, "Are you happy?"
"What a dumb question!" I agree.
He continues: "To me, life froze at this one feeling. And I think how lucky I am: No other boy in Watsonia got to experience this feeling." Are you sure Adam hasn't hooked up with someone else?
" I've met other boys since, and they don't know it. Only me." So other boys, who haven't met Adam, don't know how it feels to hook up with Adam? Makes sense.
Then they go back to Adam's apartment in a grim industrial building and sit on the bed, looking depressed.
Adam: "I don't want to fuck. I just want to hold you." They lie down and hug and cry. Adam calls him "My beautiful boy." The end.
Hey, isn't that what Kol's mother called him? And you're only about three years older. Super-creepy, buddy.
The end
Beefcake: Kol dancing in his underwear, before they drop the dance plot.
Gay Characters: Adam and probably Kol.
Heterosexism: None.
My Grade: The multiple dropped premises remind me of The Garden of Forking Paths. Is this going to be a movie about a girl who was sexually assaulted, an aspiring dancer, the War in Bosnia, Y2K, a psycho uncle, a creepy mom, or obsessing over one-day romance? Or bits of them all, like real life? And I have an excuse to post some photos of cute Serbian dudes. B.
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