Boyfriends

In terms of content, there isn't anything that breaks new ground here, but the cast and the script are appealing enough to hold one's attention. The movie does suffer from British sound (something I remember Richard Carpenter, creator of "Robin of Sherwood" that ran on Showtime in the U.S. in the mid-80s, complaining about in terms of British TV and film production) where things become difficult to hear at times. People unfamiliar with British accents and slang may be at a double disadvantage trying to understand that which they can not hear.

I've watched the DVD a few times and I still enjoy it. It has a non-exploitative approach to its characters and their sex lives. And fortunately, we are saved from the "I hate to be gay, why am I like this?" that characterizes too many gay films prior to the mid-90s. I do wish there was a directors' commentary track as I enjoy knowing why creators make the choices that they do.

As an additional feature, the DVD also includes an animated version of the story of Achilles. This short film is shot in beautifully rendered stop motion animation and narrated by Derek Jacobi.

As a whole, I think this is a decent addition to any collection of gay DVDs. People who enjoy this movie are also likely to enjoy "Like It Is", "My Beautiful Laundrette", "Queer As Folk" (BBC--Series One), "Get Real", "Lilies", and "The Broken Hearts Club."

almost a rip-off of LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!, 2009-07-31
BOYSFRIENDS is just this side of being a British rip-off of the American film LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! Really. It's just "deja vu all over again" and the viewer is struck by many remarkable similarities between these two gay friendship/relationship-themed movies.

Further, BOYFRIENDS was made with considerably less attention paid to production values - particularly the sound recording of the dialogue.

Some reviewers here imply that this movie should be given a "pass" because it's an independent film, a labor of love done by producers and actors who "meant well." In the early 1980s when we were just beginning to see more than one gay film issued per year, I might have agreed. But that was then. After all, PARTING GLANCES was an independent "labor of love" that meant well and it holds up even now as a 5 star film by almost anyone's reckoning. Therefore I don't think the descriptive term "indie" can or should be used as an excuse for a product that falls very far short of the "independent" mark set by PARTING GLANCES over 20 years ago.

In some sense, the best thing about this film was "I Wish I Knew the Name of the Boy of My Dreams," a jazzy Dinah Washington song used to great effect in the musical soundtrack.

Skip this movie. Buy instead the Dinah Washington "Greatest Hits" cd and DVDs of PARTING GLANCES and LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!

Boyfriends and Boy Friends, 2007-01-17
Co-writers/directors Tom Hunsinger and Neil Hunter conjured this little Indie film in 1996, an examination of relationships among seven gay men that not only impresses as a non-exploitive, honest sociologic study of life in the 90s in England, it also is a film that is a healthy mix of humor and tenderness that stands up well more than ten years later.

Three couples of varying endurance gather for a weekend holiday to celebrate a birthday: Paul (James Dreyfus, remembered as Hugh Grant's ditsy travel book shop worker in NOTTING HILL) has been with Ben (Mark Sands) for five years but their relationship is rocky because of Paul's wandering eye for a lad he met at the funeral of his brother Mark; Matt (Michael Urwin) is celebrating his three month steady relationship with Owen (Andrew Abelson) though Owen already has the itch to move on; Will (David Coffey) brings his latest one-night stand twinkie Adam (Darren Petrucci), knowing that his chances of retaining the youth's interest are less than favorable. Into the mix comes James (Michael McGrath), the ex-lover of the recently departed Mark whose arrival and introduction to the group occurs in the form of a tryst in the woods with Owen.

Each of the paired men face confrontations and face honesty about their pasts - recent and distant - and it is through the weekend of bed swapping that each man finds his own real needs. And the results vary from happy reunions to factual realities of choices made.

The cast is a mixture of seasoned professional actors and newcomers who have not made subsequent films. There is a ring of honesty in the portrayals and the creators have opted to study compatibilities based on personality traits and needs as opposed to filling the story with the requisite soap opera subplots that tend to dampen the effect of these studies of groups and their lives. It is not a great film, but is an honest little quiet movie with particularly good performances from James Dreyfus and Andrew Abelson. Worth watching, even in 2007! Grady Harp, January 07

• Like It Is
• Breakfast With Scot
• Edge of Seventeen
• En Tu Ausencia
• Red Dirt