Kirpianuscus
one of films useful for the feeling after the last credits. a simple story. touching, almost a sentimental sketch, a sort of life lesson , giving a message who, if you do not ignore the last scene, could be too sentimental. but it remains a real useful film about solitude and about fears and about the perspective of a child about the universe of his father. so, a great film out of the ordinary meaning of "great". because the state of the viewer after the end of this short film is the only significant thing .
Paul
Provoking short, I think brilliantly written, directed, filmed and acted. Im understanding the challenges, yet I'm not reading in any reviews or plot summaries, the story behind the pills and anxiety. The prostitute was molested and now has crippling anxiety and the son is dealing with monsters under his bed, i.e. father molested or is molesting him. Hustler and boy identify the common thread, and the cycle ends for both. Monsters gone, pills no longer needed, healing begins. If you notice, the son watches his father and hears him say to the prostitute, I don't pay you to play with my son, I pay you for me...then aggressively forces himself on the hustler...son identifies at that exact moment and doesn't say a word and behaves not as if it was normal, you can see he knows its a violation, but yet, it's been done to him. So, he empathizes with the hustler, hustler affirms he just dealt with the monster, for them both. They now heal. Possible I'm over complicating the story..?
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
It's pretty much always the same with these gay-themed short films. They go for lack of realism, bad story lines, shock value, sex, violence, homophobia etc., but it almost never happens that they manage to elaborate convincingly on only a single one of these aspects. This one here makes no difference unfortunately. "The Boy Next Door" was made 7 years ago, runs for 14 minutes and the writer and director is Gregor Schmidinger, actually a German filmmaker. It's a bit surprising as this is his first work and an American production with English language. Him being a rookie really is the only mitigating factor here though. No surprise, he hasn't gotten beyond gay-themed short films and hasn't made a movie in 3 years now. I see no real talent here. Same goes for the actors. I am not surprised at all that none of the trio really seems to have a prospering career right now. A mediocre work from start to finish and I don#t recommend.
Havan_IronOak
It's never explained why this young man has turned to prostitution but it's heavily suggested that a drug habit is involved. What pain the drugs are masking is left to the imagination. As with many short films, this one poses many unanswered questions about motivations and back-story but this film is successful in getting you to care somewhat for the characters.It's an apt snapshot but not much more. It suggests that the director has potential but it will require a more fully developed story-line to tell for sure. The young kid and the prostitute were bot well cast but the other man seemed too young to be the father of a kid that age. I felt a short bit of disappointment at the end in the denouement. I expected the film to come to a better conclusion than the walking away scene that we get.
AD
