garybagrov Indeed, the subject promised a lot of food for thought:how can a gay and talented young musician fit in the world of dogmatic clichés of his mother's? Quite a common and, alas,dangerous situation. Indeed,the cast promised a lot:British actors usually present a much more sophisticated and profound performance than their famous Hollywood counterparts.Also, they usually speak better English ! Indeed,the characters involved promised a serious and uncompromising drama , because they differed from the traditional gay films stereotypes . Well,it might have been a real masterpiece, but...it failed.Why?What is the reason? I believe the main culprit is the script that ,probably, is a little vague in its message.What is the idea of the film?The liberation of a gay spirit from the chains of traditions and old values?The sudden (and absolutely unbelievable) "awakening " of the boy's mother, who is the type that brings their sons to a suicide and then cries for them for the rest of her life?The cruelty and deceit of the gay world?The ruined dreams and ambitions (again, never properly explained)of a young musician? Unfortunately, these questions have never been answered, and the only reaction of a viewer after watching the film is the disappointed shrug of his/her shoulders.

HoldenSpark stellarust, You seem to have missed the point of the movie. Its not about the young man's art (his love and study of the piano) nor is it even about his romance with his idol (the piano player he looks up to.) It is, in fact, a fable, or fairy tale, (very much like the many attributed to Grimm). This is why, I believe, you found it heavy-handed. The story is about a mother who learns her son is gay, and learns it while he is still a child (albeit he is 18 and not, technically, a child, yet as most 18 year olds, they still require wise parenting from time-to-time for a few more years yet, when appropriate) and so he needs some guidance. Yet he doesn't realize he does, and fights it for a variety of reasons, most of which are somewhat characteristic of this point in time (the beginning of the 21st century). What this fable does is demonstrate a woman with problems of her own, realizing she her son still needs guidance even if she's not sure what it should be yet. The fable is two-fold: 1) it shows how an enlightened parent should react once they become aware and become educated, and 2) shows that there are still big bad wolves in the forest just waiting to huff and puff and blow your house down. It says to parents: here is how to respond to a gay child/young adult. And it says to gay young adults: beware the wolves of the forest, but, if you notice your parent responding like the mother in this film, trust them.Its about where to place trust, which is always the core of any fable, parable, or fairy tale.Lighten up. Stories cannot be alike. A variety of food is required to fill all your needs. Man cannot live on bread alone.

ausmoe I can't believe how beautiful Kevin Bishop is! I wish he is getting acting coaching so he gets more films. The photography is very good. The mother character is hilarious. I can't believe she actually did not notice the pianist was gay and still she was trying to seduce him. There should have been more classical music played by Paul or Richard given that both of them are musicians. I also liked the concierge in Richard's Barcelona hotel. He could have been shown some more, for example have a short scene (meeting Richard) in the hotel's sauna or pool, during his time off, or at the local beach. All in all, the movie is a 9.

petrof If the story had been pared down to an examination of the central two characters, rather than lavished with grotesque, utterly implausible and terribly acted caricatures, then this film might have had some potential for being saved from itself. As it stands it has little.There is no great skill to being catty and negative, but seeing as Food of Love is, by its shoddiness and carelessness an open invitation to cattiness and negativity...Where to begin? Here are some criticisms: Amateurish, peculiarly dull, predictable, plodding, fraudulent, first-draft dialogue unshorn of the clichés by which any self respecting writer would be haunted, insensitive, prosaic, pedestrian and irritating. Acres of text could be written, if I had a little more energy, about the individual flaws (How about the accent of the piano teacher -- teetering on the brink of being new york Jewish in her first scene, definitely wispy and elderly Scots at the beginning of her second before being revealed, we assume when we learn her name, to be Russian, is used to deliver the sort of lines a piano teacher really *would* never say, reminding her student, for instance: "it's called the Well-tempered clavier not the ill-tempered clavier." The fact that such a dreadfully banal witticism was found funny enough, or perhaps enlightening enough to be included speaks volumes. Clearly no one with any serious interest in or knowledge of music could be bothered to turn up on the day that scene was filmed to ensure that they didn't put the first prelude from the 48 -- something a beginner might play, in the fingers of someone who is supposed to be a music student), with perhaps a few lines to note the strengths. The idea that a young sensitive gay pianist might be happy in the sexual or romantic clutches of leering, ugly, bald, rich, smug men who seem all to be in their fifties is to stretch the idea of a young man's rebellion far past its natural limit.No, I can't go on. I'm too furious that I paid money for it, on the recommendation of The Times, of all things, and must go and lie down; but before I do I will say this. Is this really what passes for an American art-house film? God help us all.