USA, 2003 Director: Ventura Pons
Stars: Juliet Stevenson, Kevin Bishop, Paul Rhys, Allan Corduner
The ambitious but mediocre young gay outsider aiming for a better life via quasi-prositutional relationships with older, wealthier homos is a recurring figure in the novels of David Leavitt. He's the rough trade Commie in "While England Sleeps", the shadow self of "Martin Baumann" and most lucidly, Paul Porterfield from "The Page Turner", filmed here as Food Of Love.
Paul (Kevin Bishop) is a capable pianist, but not talented enough to break into recital hall superstardom. He's the apple of his mother's (Juliet Stevenson) eye but then she's so rose-glassed she doesn't even notice that her husband is about to leave her for his long-term girlfriend. Paul is handsome, and his pressed-boxers wholesomeness is prime bait for older, world-weary art snobs like agent Joseph Mansourian (Allan Corduner) and his client/boyfriend Richard Kennington (Paul Rhys) a former child prodigy now creeping into jaded middle age. Paul turns pages for Richard, who he idolises, and unwittingly makes both Richard and Joseph's pants tent. When Paul and his mother travel to Barcelona, they bump into Richard, and while Mom is out visiting the Sagrada Familia, Paul is back at the hotel riding Richard's cock. Meanwhile, back in New York, Joseph is mourning the death of his beloved dog and hoping Richard will return home from Spain soon.
The gradual unfolding of secrets to all and sundry is a reasonably well told tale and the flowering of a more mature relationship between mother and son is sincere and believable. I really like the truthful character of Paul - it's good if a little bitter to watch a real person flail around in their disappointing life. Paul's not a superhero, and things don't suddenly "fall into place" for him in the film's climax. He's dreamt a little higher than his reality will allow and it's to Bishop's and the droll script's credit that his self-realisation isn't operatic or manipulative.
What I struggled with, and what I've always struggled with in Leavitt's books, was how unattractive some of the characters are. Paul's life is a flat tyre, but at least there's a sense that his life might evolve into something down the track. His train-wreck elders, with their empty-hearted lie-filled existences dressed in out-of-shape saggy bodies and vampiric desires for young gullible flesh are just petrifying. A false note of an otherwise strong film is why a hottie like Paul would be physically attracted to Richard, who is wholly unattractive, and then to Joseph, who is even more foul. Paul's narcissistic longing for personal career greatness seems to have clouded his vision, as he only seems to want to sleep with his dreamed-of future self.
