Love makes a family

Romantic triangle joins 20 years of tangled lives

UHAUL

August 6, 2004

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Clare (Robin Wright Penn), Jonathan (Dallas Roberts) and Bobby (Colin Farrell) contemplate their created family

by Kaizaad Kotwal

A Home at the End of the World, by gay Ohio native Michael Cunningham, was published to glowing reviews in 1990. The novel, about a boy growing into manhood who falls in love with his best friend, examines what makes a family in contemporary America.

Now made into a film, it tells the story of Bobby (Colin Farrell) and Jonathan (relative newcomer Dallas Roberts). Friends from early childhood, they meet later as students in a suburban Cleveland school and soon become inseparable. Jonathan, who is more conventional, sees in Bobby a world larger than he is accustomed to. For Bobby, Jonathan and his family allow him a stability he is unaccustomed to. A tragedy with his brother shapes Bobby's life from an early ag

As they mature into adolescence and beyond, they drift apart. But as fate and circumstance would have it, they reunite in New York. Here, together, with the free-spirited character of Clare (Robin Wright Penn), they invent a new kind of family.

The characters, particularly Bobby, are always searching for happiness and a sense of home and family. In this quest, they force the audience to contemplate the very definitions of these things in American political and cultural life.

The film is well made and well adapted. Farrell first came to the attention of U.S.

Curbside

R.KIRBY

JUR FIRST KISS LED TO ANOTHER, WHICH LED TO A MAKE OUT SESSION, WHICH LED TO 50METHING I WASN'T QUITE EXPECTING. NATHAN, I NEED TO GO MEET THE GUYS. YOU SHOULD COME ALONG.

filmgoers in queer director Joel Schumacher's Tigerland, about American soldiers training for the Vietnam War in the backwoods of Louisiana. That highly charged and homoerotic film made the Irish-born Farrell a star on the rise. He will next be seen in the title role of Oliver Stone's epic feature Alexander, already raising controversy about what aspects of Alexander the Great's homosexuality will be revealed or hidden—in the film.

Farrell is good in Home but at times seems

a bit older than the part demands. There is no doubt that he is an actor of substance, but because he has been trying to bridge commercial fare (like the dud Daredevil) with more serious fare (like the amazing Phone Booth) Farrell sometimes tries too hard to prove his mettle as a performer.

A Julliard graduate, Dallas Roberts makes his debut in a leading role as the gay Jonathan. He has the perfect look for the role and proves that he is a young talent to watch for. His chemistry in the film with Farrell and Robin Wright Penn is intense and intimate.

Penn is an actress of great range and accomplishments. She received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Forrest Gump, where she played a freespirited woman in search of her piece of the American dream. Here she is equally subtle and graceful in her performance.

Sissy Spacek, who has earned six Academy Award nominations, is solid here as

COME ALONG FOR WHAT?

COME ALONG TO MEET THEM, DUH! LIKE I TOLD YOU, THEY'RE PRETTY COOL GUYS. YOU'LL LIKE THEM.

Jonathan's mother and Bobby's surrogate parent. She is having a revival of sorts in the last few years and she proves over and over again, why she is one of the best of her generation.

Out director Michael Mayer most recently directed the Tony Award-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, and also directed the national tour of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

His feature film debut with Home is solid and measured. Mayer garners some great performances from his actors and he is faithful to Cunningham`s vision.

Author Michael Cunningham, born in Cincinnati in 1952, adapts his own novel here for the screen.

Cunningham received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Hours, later made into a film. His writing is detailed in its character creations and both The Hours and Home prove that he knows how to write people who are complex, flawed and seeking the betterment of their own humanity.

A Home at the End of the World is produced by Killer Films, headed by lesbian producer Christine Vachon.

Home is a film that defies the loud, brash summer films replete with super heroes. Yet Home is about heroes of a different kind. It is a good harbinger for the fall, when the more serious and artful films will begin to emerge.

YEAH, CAL,

Robert Kirby

YEAH? WELL, YOU

SOME OF MY BEST VE BEEN KISSING

PALS ARE JUVE

NILE DELINQUENT GANG MEMBERS.

ONE OF 'EM FOR

THE LAST FIF-

TEEN MINUTES.

SO YOU'RE ONE OF THEM, HUN? I THOUGHT YOU TOLD ME YOU WEREN'T REALLY A MEMBER?

LIKE I SAID, I'M ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, You Know ? THEY'RE MY FRIENDS. IM SORRY YOU DON'T APPROVE, BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS..

OK.

SWEE

WAS SO CURIOUS TO SEE WHERE WHAT THINGS WOULD GO WITH THIS KID... EVER SO I WAS WILLING TO DO THINGS I'LL I DIDN'T WANT TO DO. AND LATER GO. ON, THINGS I SHOULDN'T DO.

THIS

OUGHTA WORK....

THANKS

You GOT ANOTHER SHIRT I CAN WEAR? THIS ONE'S SKANKED.

2ND COLD

SHOWER

OYA DEVER HEA Any Mlow

BLACK ITEMS

WARNER BROS.

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