Awful movie......just awful. Please don't waste your life watching it.

This is a really lovely film by a filmmaker I had not heard of. Never in a rush to get anywhere, Stephen Cone's film weaves its way so naturally through these intersecting lives, as they jump in and out of the pool at Henry Gamble's 17th Birthday Party. Everyone has a crush on someone else, no one is satisfied, and yet there's nothing melodramatic, just subtle body language, and flashes of accidental honesty. I was immediately intrigued - from the first innocent conversation between two teen boys casually exaggerating the size of their members, to the prophetic line Henry announces to his family, as he looks at the time on the morning of the party, "I was just born." The family is very Christian, dad is the local pastor so there's prayer before meals, and they don't touch alcohol, which makes the homosexual subtext (among other secrets) at the beginning of the movie all the more intriguing. Coming out movies had their heyday, and to do one nowadays requires it to be a lot more, which this movie is. Mr. Cone's delicate hand, and his subtle message of compassion is never overwhelmed by the enormous, talented, relatively unknown cast, or the inherent drama of teenage angst.

It seems that Mr. Cone has seen too many movies he liked because he is trying to use camera angles that seem to make no sense what so ever. I mean... interesting they are but that is all about them. To start a movie with the conversation about the size of the d**k without having anything to start from in the first place, to me is porn. 'Wannabe' art but ends up being porn. And that's bad enough. But when you involve actors or 'wannabe' actors in it then I can only think the director has a hidden message that the only person to have access to... might be just himself. I truly hope this is not true! I truly hope the actors or the team, at least, know about this message. If this is not the case then Mr. Cone does movies to be paid for. And my questions is: what happened with Mr. Cone we know from 'Wise kids'? Was that a mistaken-art-success? Because we see there as well the 'Mr. Cone wannabe director' but he shows love for the script and for the characters and building of the characters. He shows love for the plots and pure courage in creating them! Where did all that go?The story of the movie: the birthday of a Christian teenage. The rest of the story is so incoherent that only Mr. Cone might be able to put it here but I am not sure about that either, now that the movie is out. I have a special sensibility for the collaboration between gay-Christian themes. And of course, there is a certain conservative respect that has to come with this collaboration. Which existed in the aforementioned 'Wise kids' movie. I have no clue what happened with this here either. The respect for the conservative Christianism disappeared. There is a feeling that covers the movie and is very exaggerated in some small parts of it: that feeling is 'the bad is coming'! And indeed, it comes!

Going strictly by the description on this site, I figured it would be AT LEAST risqué, I mean we all know they don't use real under 18 for any movie like this anyway, so I figured it would be compelling and visually stimulating.I watched the whole movie and I have no idea what points the writers were trying to make. I am sure they didn't know either. I mean, if you are going to make a film with faith and homosexuality, don't you have to have a side?? Just for good measure they take the time to make a guy who supposedly likes the almost legal boys look like a pathetic loser. I guess he is supposed to be a pedophile?? This movie hints at a lot of things and then goes in another direction, it is complete and utter trash.The writing is erratic and the acting isn't much better.