Rating: 3/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2024 | 32/52 | Rarelust
On the shores of Dartmouth sits a white house. There lives Jonathan Osborne, a 14-year-old boy who loves boats. One morning, just before daybreak, Jonathan sneaks out to meet with other boys. Their leader is a boy named Chief, who smokes a cigar and gives the boys a book on sex positions to drool over. But when they get too excited, Chief chastises them and takes the book.
Jonathan’s mother, Anne, worries about what he gets up to, but Jonathan keeps his lips shut. Anne is still in mourning over her husband, who died three years earlier. When she grounds Jonathan, he finds a peephole in his room that allows him a full view of Anne’s bedroom. Through this, he develops an unhealthy fixation on her.
Meanwhile, Chief preaches some bastardization of Nietzsche to the gang — morality is meaningless and whatnot. Of course, they have no idea what he’s talking about.
One day, a large shipping vessel arrives, and Anna arranges for Jonathan to get a tour. Jim Cameron, the second officer of the ship, shows them around. Anne falls for him and his weird shark fixation.
I don’t understand the boys at all. Like, I can’t get into any of their heads. I get the sense that their language and world are more developed in the novel. Here, Jonathan says bizarre things out of nowhere about perfection.
The film starts weird as hell, but then it tries to make something sentimental out of Anne and Jim’s relationship. Perhaps we’re meant to feel those contrasts, but Kris Kristofferson doesn’t feel right in the role.
I don’t know — I like how weird and off the movie feels, but it lacks something that would make me love it, and I can’t figure out what it is.