The Toilers and Wayfairers

Reviewed by: Ian & David

Copyright © 2007 ? All Rights Reserved

Studio : Picture This

Available on DVD - Click Here

An independent flick made in 1996, according to the data over at TLA. Now again, warning here, this is NOT a porn movie, but is about a coming of age story, about two teenagers from small town America.

It is set in a German community in Minnesota, and at the start it is nothing but German with subtitles. However, the two teenagers are friggin hot, and I do mean hot. They are stuff twink lovers all over dream about, and yes drool over.

It isn’t really a feel good movie either. It is about homophobia, but also about how lonely being Gay can be, for a teenager. You have all these feelings, you trust your best friend, only to be rejected, even though he doesn’t really want to reject you. Course you don’t know it, but it is about how kids make choices, that lead to a rather seamy lifestyle, when push comes to shove.

The film is done in black and white too, which is rather hard to take, but gives it a feeling of despair which I think is what they wanted. Now the blurb says it is a tender coming out film, but I don’t agree. Frankly it isn’t tender really, but rather sad in fact.

It highlights how alone a teenager does feel. It highlights how even in 1996, and frankly even today, gay teenagers are at risk not because they are stupid, but because they feel they have very little options. They are lured to leave because families fail to understand that their kid is queer, they fail to understand that he still needs their love, their understanding.

This movie points that out very well.

It always amazes me how you can go to bed one night, the loving son, then the next day when you come out, you are suddenly an evil good for nothing, a deviant, or some other piece of trash. I always believed that love was not something you could turn on or off, though obviously it is for some people.

I don’t know if this is what I’d call a movie for a casual nights viewing, but if you want to shock the shit out of some prude, or some asshole that says that being gay is a choice, let them watch this movie. Being Gay is not a choice, but what happens after you come out, whether to a friend or family, is a choice. To leave, to run, or to tough it out seems like the only options open. It is too bad, that even today, there is no safe haven easily accessible for Gay Teenagers. Schools try, least some where they offer clubs like GSA’s though the religious Right continue to launch lawsuits to deny those groups access.

They claim it is for protection of their kids, but what about the Gay Kids? Don’t they deserve any protection? And yes, as you can tell, the movie has riled me up some, because I see how the cops treated the one kid they caught, I see how the father reacts when he finds out his son was got turning tricks, and it makes me mad.

As for the movie, it wasn’t long, and left me feeling empty. I don’t know, it got the blood pressure up, but it didn’t give me hope, give me a sense of redemption even. It just ended, in a way that is sad, and I hate sad endings. I like my stories to end happy, but this one sort of did, but mainly didn’t.

The acting itself was okay, bit stilted really though I have to admit, the three main characters were good looking. The dialogue in parts was very mundane, uneventful and they glossed over a great deal in order to push the story along. It left off as it started, sort of without giving any satisfaction or answers.

Certainly no Brokeback Mountain, but in its own way, it was good. Besides the two actors, the story itself was a bit, well hard to take. It reminded me too much about the real world, where teenagers feel so isolated, so desperate, so in pain, that to them laying in front of a train seems like salvation.

Thank you Mitt Romney, George Bush, and Pope Benedict. What a wonderful world you have created in GOD’s name.