Review of Latter Days (2004) by Rainbow I — 27 Jan 2010

The film concept is good, taking something done so many times before with two people who are completely opposite falling for each other, but adding the slightly controversial twist of those two people being gay - one a morman missionary and one a party boy. The film however seemed to try to hard to deal with pretty indepth issues, I had the feeling it spent too long trying to emphasis the point rather than on much character development - at least in the first half of the film. It picks up a little more after Aaron leaves and Christian tries to deal with first being in love for the first time and then with the guilt of what he thinks he has done.

The acting however was fantastic, I watched this film purely to see Erik Palladino in something other than ER so needless to say I loved his scenes. I also came away with new found respect for both Steve Sandvos and Wes Ranmsey who play the leads, not to mention the fact that Joseph Gordon-Livitt puts in another great performance.

I also loved the soundtrack that went with the film, every song spoke about the emotion in that particular scene.

Overall the film had its good moments and its bad moment. I did like the ending, although I had seen it coming for a long time. But the moment Christian sees Aaron again and realises the truth, that he is in fact ok and they just hug was beautifully done. The acting was good, my only problem with the casting at all is purely shallow as it would have been nice to see Erik Palladino look as beautiful as he can do - but I wouldn't really change his character.