WARNING, SPOILER ALERT.
I read the book when it first came out almost 20 years ago, and I despised it because of the ending. I don't really care what psychobabble mumbo jumbo symbolic whatever the author was intending to convey by ending the book the way he did. To me it's nothing more and nothing less than the usual typical gay-themed book or film where the gay character has to die in the end. Yes, obviously real life isn't all gumdrops and rainbows but regardless of the author's intentions, did the world really need to see a movie where this kid gets brutally raped and murdered? Personally I think not.
In any event, I had no intention of ever watching this movie, having read the book and strongly disliking it as I mentioned above. But then quite by accident I stumbled across this totally beautiful video http://tinyurl.com/la7w4mq which gave me the hope that perhaps the screenwriter re-wrote the book by getting rid of all the violence and death and ambiguity. Unfortunately that's not the case at all, but in fact if you watch the first 2/3 of the movie and then just shut it off, it's a really beautiful love story and you can pretend that the 2 boys live happily ever after.
I read the book when it first came out almost 20 years ago, and I despised it because of the ending. I don't really care what psychobabble mumbo jumbo symbolic whatever the author was intending to convey by ending the book the way he did. To me it's nothing more and nothing less than the usual typical gay-themed book or film where the gay character has to die in the end. Yes, obviously real life isn't all gumdrops and rainbows but regardless of the author's intentions, did the world really need to see a movie where this kid gets brutally raped and murdered? Personally I think not.
In any event, I had no intention of ever watching this movie, having read the book and strongly disliking it as I mentioned above. But then quite by accident I stumbled across this totally beautiful video http://tinyurl.com/la7w4mq which gave me the hope that perhaps the screenwriter re-wrote the book by getting rid of all the violence and death and ambiguity. Unfortunately that's not the case at all, but in fact if you watch the first 2/3 of the movie and then just shut it off, it's a really beautiful love story and you can pretend that the 2 boys live happily ever after.