If not for his lead role in "Footloose", Kevin Bacon might be most well-known for the actor linking game that bares his name. Even though he's headed up a cast on a number of occasions, he remains one of the most recognizable and chameleon-like character actors of his generation.His strengths for conveying characters through great subtlety and resistance have translated well behind the camera as well. He directs his real life wife, Kyra Sedgwick, in "Loverboy". In it she plays a complicated, but surprisingly elusive woman whose childhood neglect has left her hellbent on creating a different life for her own child. Unfortunately her efforts to conceive and parent are fraught with overzealousness and obsessive behavior. The internal struggle and harrowing sadness is well presented through her impressive, nuanced performance as well as Bacon's visual canvas that in many ways recreates the films of the early-seventies. This is a gentle, yet moody film that is well-conceived and emotionally daring.

I LOVED this flick! And I am not a movie person and only occasionally will I go to the video store. I am glad that I picked up this movie, although I usually pick up a movie when I know that Kyra is involved. I also like Kevin Bacon whom I first watched on the soap opera, The Guiding Light" some 26 years ago.I really connected with Emily's loneliness, her desire to create a family that would not desert her and her panic when she realizes that everybody leaves. And that it's OK to watch your birds fly out in the world. I was intrigued by the way that you are lead to the end of the story.My only sort of "complaint" is that at the very end, I would have liked to have less narration and more time to speculate internally.Thank you.

Loverboy brilliantly lays parental love out on the table for all of us to observe in two of its twisted, unbalanced forms. The first is that of young Emily's parents, played sublimely by both director Kevin Bacon, and Marisa Tomei, who think that parenting consists of modeling love by bathing together with the door open and constantly cuddling in front of the child, as though she would be nurtured by having a pair of super-sexed hippie babysitters for guardians. The two are a riot, as is Sosie Bacon, playing with her real-life dad, a girl who sings a Bowie song in a school show in order to shock her parents into caring about her. These flashbacks are intricately woven together with the scenes of the adult Emily, played by Bacon's real wife, Kyra Sedgwick, as she raises her six-year-old Paul (Dominic Scott Kay) on her own, calling him Loverboy. Master Kay holds his own as the increasingly suffocated son, trying to escape his mother's web of the other kind of unbalanced love, being kept "safe" and "smart" and unsullied by society. We feel deeply for Paul, hoping that he will be allowed to stay in school as Emily descends heartbreakingly into madness, fearful that the school is poisoning her child. We pray that Matt Dillon, as a friendly fisherman, will be allowed to take Paul for a "boys only" fishing trip, but even then, the desperate Emily stands on the shore screaming at them to be safe while they're trying to have a few bonding moments together. The movie moves and looks like a dream, and like a dream, it has an explosive, cathartic ending that you have to wake up from. The Bacons in every way have put together a searing work of art, beautifully acted, shot and mounted, that should haunt anyone who can identify with its universally tragic themes.

I read this book and saw the film at the Hamptons International Film Festival (10/2005). This is a complex and nuanced story about a single mother's obsessive love for her only child. The story explores the psychology of this obsession and the sometimes sublime, sometimes tragic effects it has on the lives of both mother and son. It is a wonderful adaptation of a novel by Victoria Redel (Greywolf 2001, Harcourt 2002 in paperback) that I imagine would present some challenges given its non-linear time frame and the careful parsing of its secret twists and turns. The acting is superb and the characters portrayed are funny, endearing, and multifaceted. Marissa Tomei and Kevin Bacon are hilarious as the 70's era, sexed up, deliriously in love and sadly neglectful parents. Kyra Sedgwick is brilliant as she confidently captures the complex subtleties of her character, making it easy for the audience to empathize with what would otherwise be, and at times is a difficult and disturbing obsessiveness. Other performances by Sandra Bullock as the sultry and insightful neighbor, Oliver Platt as the nervous and nerdy school administrator, and Matt Dillon as the love interest you can't help but root for, all contribute to what is a very entertaining and meaningful film.