l_rawjalaurence Filmed in and around Chicago. C. M. Birkmeier's no-budget film centers on a turbulent relationship between Kurt (Kyle Wigent), and Paul (Tanner Rittenhouse). They begin the film with their affair completely "in bloom," as the title suggests; but then Kurt declares openly to Paul that he is no longer in love. Whether that is actually true or not is a moot point; by the film's end, when Kurt is the unwitting witness to an horrific murder, he actually discovers the true meaning of fidelity and loyalty.The plot is a familiar one, but director Birkmeier reinvigorates it through a suggestive cinematic style. His stock-in-trade is the flat two-shot framing Kurt and Paul as they eat Chinese food, play video games, or sit in bed. This might suggest closeness, but can also denote imprisonment; hence Kurt's desire to escape the relationship. Yet Birkmeier also uses the aerial shot looking down on the two lovers as they lie in bed together. They seem quite far distant from the camera - a fitting metaphor, perhaps, for the state of their affair. On another occasion he films them making love to one another; they are actually lying horizontally in bed, but Birkmeier shoots them from the side and then turns the image through forty-five degrees, making it seem as if they are standing up, having a "quickie" before moving on.On other occasions Birkmeier uses locations to suggest the sterility of the protagonists' existence. Paul spends his days in a grocery- store filling shelves and exchanging desultory conversation with co- worker Eddie (Jake Andrews). Meanwhile Kurt visits several groups of youngsters to sell them weed; while making a lot of ready money from the deals, he does not seem to enjoy it very much. Or maybe he is just frightened of engagement with anyone, whether boyfriends or others.Critics might accuse IN BLOOM of giving a stereotyped portrait of a gay community as promiscuous, drug-addicted and hedonistic. This is perhaps a little too censorious: Birkmeier seems more interested in the emptiness of his characters' existences as they move aimlessly from party to party without any real aim in life. This is the main reason for Paul and Kurt's break-up; while they claim to have each other, they both realize that the relationship will not get anywhere.

Garrett Hernandez Is it impossible for the gay community to make a gay movie that doesn't portray gay people as promiscuous, uneducated, drug-addicted, alcoholics who cannot have a successful relationship? Apparently not. This is just another example of gay people actually advancing negative stereotypes by actually portraying all the gay people in their movie as that stereotype. Gay people are successful lawyers, doctors, and parents. Is that too boring for your movie or doesn't it portray enough of a struggle? The only things the characters in this movie think about are getting drunk, getting high or cheating. Is this supposed to make non-gay people more sympathetic to those different then them, or to re-enforce their already bigoted views? It's embarrassing that you don't even stand up for yourself.

lasttimeisaw IN BLOOM, the debut feature from director/writer Chris Michael Birkmeier, a genre mixture tale in Chicago, recounts the ups-and-downs of a young couple Kurt (Wigent) and Paul (Rittenhouse), the former is a drug-dealer, but his clientèle are mostly hipster youngsters, so it is not a swearing, gun-crazy thriller one might expect for this sort of job; but Paul is a clerk in a supermarket, who scorns this line-of-work, yet as long as it pays for the bills, he can just condone it. A looming danger which quite inferiorly sets the suspenseful tone is a serial killer on the lam, whose victims are uniformly young males, which is haphazardly reminded from news flashes on TV and a random enactment. In the midstream, a stimulation to mislead us Kurt is going to be the next victim, until edging to the coda, a final victim would supposedly thrust a revelation for Kurt about the profundity of love, which frankly speaking, is quite a lame strategy to choose this particular object. Apparently, the central story is an ever-so-common relationship quandary, Kurt is the variant who is frustrated and scared to find out the sexual attraction has dwindled, which for any mature mind, it is a sign that their relationship eases into another critical phase, when passion turns into the form of a deeper love. But as a young blood, he clearly is not that smart, and incited by external temptation from one of his client Kevin (Fane), he breaks off the relationship, but the new lifestyle is not his messiah, when remorse overcomes, can he mend his mistake?Generally speaking, IN BLOOM looks rather cheap in appearance, especially the night time scenes, amateurish and uninspiring, the storyline awkwardly fatigues although the two leads strives to perk up the borderline insufferable narrative to some extent. By any criterion, it is difficult to pick anything singular for praise, on the whole, the film's sole plausible excuse of its existence is that it enters on a gay couple, otherwise, hopefully years later, when we look back from a time when sexuality will no longer be an irrelevant topic, the movie will be remissly regarded as one of the anachronism from a bygone era, that will be the best scenario ever!

Tom Dooley This indie, gay based drama has been compared to Brit, indie hit 'Weekend'. I can see the comparisons but actually found this to be a better story. It is about two men Paul and Kurt, the film starts out with them meeting at a party and it is clear that they are somewhat 'estranged'; we then go back seven months to when their love was clearly 'in bloom' and find out how they got to this stage. Whilst Paul worked in a supermarket to pay the bills, Kurt was a drug dealer and got to meet a lot of laid back people – some might say too laid back. A chance encounter then starts the clock ticking on the road to separation. We also have a back story of a serial killer who is targeting lone men. What we then have is the painful deterioration of the two lovers relationship and I have to sat it was done completely convincingly. Things never just end and this was like watching nails being hammered into the coffin of their shared love.I found this completely absorbing even though it was far from being a 'feel good' movie. Quite the contrary; it dealt with an aspect of relationships that is all too often ignored and that is the breakdown. Director Chris Michael-Birkmeier has made a very good film and has also got two excellent performances from his leading men Kyle Wigent as Kurt and Tanner Rittenhouse as Paul – both of them virtual unknowns but both showing great ability. Not a bedroom fest more a study of a relationship past its best and if you are up for a challenging, intelligent and very human story then you could do a lot worse than giving this one a chance – recommended.