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Gerontophilia

Country: Canada, Language: English | French, 90 mins

  • Director: Bruce La Bruce
  • Writer: Bruce La Bruce; Daniel Allen Cox
  • Producer: Nicolas Comeau; Leonard Farlinger

CGiii Comment

Bruce LaBruce has gone [almost] mainstream

!Shocking news for his aficionados...surprising news for his dissenters.

This film is somewhat divisive...a good idea about a rather controversial subject - significant age-gap relationships - and, the ability to bring that 'good idea' to life...some scenes work magnificently while others flounder and fail...the bar scene with the birthday cake - oh dear!!!

The main problem with Gerontophilia is the lead actor - obviously a graduate from the Keanu Reeves School of Acting...pleasant to look at...but, as soon as he opens his mouth...all credibility immediately evaporates. When he doesn't speak, it works, he works.

The 'mother' and 'the nurse' over-act - annoyingly so.

LaBruce - if he is to continue his journey down mainstream - will either have to hone his skills with directing actors or, simply, get better ones. Yes, budget restraints always present a problem....but, a truly gifted director should be able to get an acceptable performance out of a stone.

Technically, it's fine...the script needed a radical re-write...the jealousy doesn't work, the nurse comes across as bi-polar, the mother needed to be cut and the girlfriend had to be less understanding.

A wholly contentious subject done with very little conflict...it needed more grit.

Still, it is LaBruce's most accessible, credible and best film to date.

Onwards and upwards.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

Lake is an unusual boy: he is a young man with an old soul who discovers he has an odd fixation on the elderly. Realizing that some day, if fate allows, he will be one himself, he is particularly fascinated by old men. He imagines their age to be a beautiful thing and recognizes how these men were once young and vibrant and attractive, as he is now. Although Lake has a girlfriend his own age, named Desiree, he wonders sometimes if his fixation on old men is unnatural and unhealthy - perhaps even sexual. When his mother, who is a nurse, takes on a management job at an old folks home, Lake jumps at her offer of a summer job as an orderly there. Gradually, Lake comes to discover that the old people in the institution are being given psychotropic drugs to keep them in a catatonic state. Lake befriends one old man in particular, Mr. Peabody, who still seems to have some fight left in him. They begin to form a strong bond.

Cast & Characters

Katie Boland as Desiree;
Nastassia Markiewicz as Cashier;
Melodie Simard;
Moe Jeudy-Lamour as Guy breaking the bottle;
Walter Borden as Mr. Peabody;
Pier-Gabriel Lajoie as Lake;
Yardly Kavanagh as Nurse Baptiste;
Brian D. Wright as Mr. Guerrero;
Marie-Helene Thibault as Marie;
Jean-Alexandre Letourneau as Kevin