‘Blue Film’ Review: A Swaggering Camboy Is Caught Off-Guard In a Provocative Chamber Piece
Anyone approaching “Blue Film” hoping to be titillated, per the pornographic implication of the title, is likely to be disappointed. “Blue” denotes sex, certainly, and that’s forever on the minds of the men in writer-director Elliot Tuttle‘s arresting two-hander: a middle-aged former schoolteacher from Maine and his onetime pupil, now a Los Angeles sex worker, uneasily reunited for one night in an anonymous rental house. But we’re in the realm here of desires both forbidden and unwanted, and as the two talk through their closed-off past and open-ended present, viewers will be more tense than anything else: Old taboos and power imbalances die hard.
Premiering in the main competition at the Edinburgh Film Festival, “Blue Film” is an unabashed provocation, but not a hollow one. Its dual protagonists — one a convicted pedophile, one a hyper-macho fetish camboy — don’t invite uncomplicated sympathy, so it’s just as well Tuttle is more interested in understanding them, exposing their respective damage in articulate detail, and letting the audience take things from there. Excellent performances by Tony-winning character actor Reed Birney (“Mass”) and charismatic British up-and-comer Kieron Moore likewise don’t shy from what makes these people flinty, difficult or at points offputtingly human. Adventurous queer-friendly distributors should latch into this high-impact miniature as it further makes the festival rounds.
For the film’s opening minutes, we’re entirely in the brawny grip of Alex (Moore) — or Aaron Eagle, as he’s known to his many online patrons — who’s introduced in the midst of his kinky webcam-model routine, braggingly flaunting his post-workout pump and “real man’s fucking ass” while taunting his followers with homophobic slurs. This bullying dom act works for them, and the tips flow in lavishly. Among those watching is soft-spoken, balaclava-wearing Hank (Birney), who has an even more generous offer for the cocky young stud: $50,000 for one night together in Los Angeles. It’s a deal.
Arriving at the Airbnb-bland suburban pad that Hank has rented for the evening, Alex feels in control of the situation, assuming the older man is after the jockish erotic humiliation that is the stock-in-trade of his alter ego. But he’s swiftly unnerved by Hank’s hidden face and quiet, inquisitive presence. As someone who makes his living in front of a lens, he’s comfortable enough acquiescing to Hank’s request to film their conversation on such topics as first sexual experiences — shades of Soderbergh’s “sex, lies and videotape.” But when Hank reveals he knows Alex’s real name and hometown, the shoe is on the other foot.
Masks are removed, literal and otherwise: Alex recognizes Hank as his former middle-school teacher Mr. Grant — scandalously fired, arrested and imprisoned for the attempted sexual assault of another boy. Alex may not have directly been one of Hank’s victims, but was an object of his lust. As someone who now makes a living being objectified, he’s cavalier in response to this confession, to a degree that throws Hank off-balance. So ensues the fragile push-pull dynamic of a shared long dark night of the soul, as the roots of trauma are variously revealed or lied about, fetishes are either intellectualized or viscerally confronted, and the possibility of wholly legal but taboo-laced sex between them hangs in the air.
It’s an unavoidably talky affair that might have had even more febrile nervous energy on stage, though credit is due to Tuttle and editor Zach Clark (himself an accomplished director of resourceful shoestring indies) for keeping the pair’s conversations charged and propulsive — even if, toward the close of this clipped 85-minute film, its ideas begin to circle a bit. Taking his aesthetic cue from the title and working in late-night pools of teal-blue light and shadow, DP Ryan Jackson-Healy also maintains the queasy atmosphere of proceedings, sharply switching between crisp digital images and the grainy video textures in which Alex is most used to being seen.
Exercising stoic reserve but not overly trying to dignify the character, Birney doesn’t shy from the pathetic, impossible yearning in Hank, but also carries himself with the slightly poignant resignation of one who has accepted his wants will never be fulfilled. In an auspicious big-screen debut after appearances of TV’s “Sex Education,” “Masters of the Air” and “Vampire Academy,” Moore gives a lithely physical performance, fully convincing as an entitled object of mass fascination whose swagger is nonetheless a pose — crumpling easily into boyish uncertainty when no one’s gaze is on him.
Premiering in the main competition at the Edinburgh Film Festival, “Blue Film” is an unabashed provocation, but not a hollow one. Its dual protagonists — one a convicted pedophile, one a hyper-macho fetish camboy — don’t invite uncomplicated sympathy, so it’s just as well Tuttle is more interested in understanding them, exposing their respective damage in articulate detail, and letting the audience take things from there. Excellent performances by Tony-winning character actor Reed Birney (“Mass”) and charismatic British up-and-comer Kieron Moore likewise don’t shy from what makes these people flinty, difficult or at points offputtingly human. Adventurous queer-friendly distributors should latch into this high-impact miniature as it further makes the festival rounds.
For the film’s opening minutes, we’re entirely in the brawny grip of Alex (Moore) — or Aaron Eagle, as he’s known to his many online patrons — who’s introduced in the midst of his kinky webcam-model routine, braggingly flaunting his post-workout pump and “real man’s fucking ass” while taunting his followers with homophobic slurs. This bullying dom act works for them, and the tips flow in lavishly. Among those watching is soft-spoken, balaclava-wearing Hank (Birney), who has an even more generous offer for the cocky young stud: $50,000 for one night together in Los Angeles. It’s a deal.
Arriving at the Airbnb-bland suburban pad that Hank has rented for the evening, Alex feels in control of the situation, assuming the older man is after the jockish erotic humiliation that is the stock-in-trade of his alter ego. But he’s swiftly unnerved by Hank’s hidden face and quiet, inquisitive presence. As someone who makes his living in front of a lens, he’s comfortable enough acquiescing to Hank’s request to film their conversation on such topics as first sexual experiences — shades of Soderbergh’s “sex, lies and videotape.” But when Hank reveals he knows Alex’s real name and hometown, the shoe is on the other foot.
Masks are removed, literal and otherwise: Alex recognizes Hank as his former middle-school teacher Mr. Grant — scandalously fired, arrested and imprisoned for the attempted sexual assault of another boy. Alex may not have directly been one of Hank’s victims, but was an object of his lust. As someone who now makes a living being objectified, he’s cavalier in response to this confession, to a degree that throws Hank off-balance. So ensues the fragile push-pull dynamic of a shared long dark night of the soul, as the roots of trauma are variously revealed or lied about, fetishes are either intellectualized or viscerally confronted, and the possibility of wholly legal but taboo-laced sex between them hangs in the air.
It’s an unavoidably talky affair that might have had even more febrile nervous energy on stage, though credit is due to Tuttle and editor Zach Clark (himself an accomplished director of resourceful shoestring indies) for keeping the pair’s conversations charged and propulsive — even if, toward the close of this clipped 85-minute film, its ideas begin to circle a bit. Taking his aesthetic cue from the title and working in late-night pools of teal-blue light and shadow, DP Ryan Jackson-Healy also maintains the queasy atmosphere of proceedings, sharply switching between crisp digital images and the grainy video textures in which Alex is most used to being seen.
Exercising stoic reserve but not overly trying to dignify the character, Birney doesn’t shy from the pathetic, impossible yearning in Hank, but also carries himself with the slightly poignant resignation of one who has accepted his wants will never be fulfilled. In an auspicious big-screen debut after appearances of TV’s “Sex Education,” “Masters of the Air” and “Vampire Academy,” Moore gives a lithely physical performance, fully convincing as an entitled object of mass fascination whose swagger is nonetheless a pose — crumpling easily into boyish uncertainty when no one’s gaze is on him.