kramnibur This is such a well told story....the plot is complicated, yet it is simply told. I am not ashamed to say that the tears started soon after the movie begun. Of course they remained until the end. All the performances were simple & simply good. Even the smaller roles were played to perfection. I loved this movie.

Historian-3 I saw this on Netflix, which offered only the very briefest of descriptions, so I had no idea what to expect. But since Netflix had it listed in the LGBT category, I did at least expect a gay-ish theme. But the repeated and somewhat heavy-handed references early in the film to evangelical Christianity (citing of Biblical verses, the prayer at the funeral, the lyrics of the overtly evangelical hymn in the sound track) left me very confused. I am left with the impression of a screenwriter who is gay but also a devout evangelical Christian, a juxtaposition that I personally find troubling. Still, I tried to give the film some benefit of doubt. I was not successful. The writing was uneven and at times very unrealistic, especially in the way Nick's social abilities ... as a person with Asperger's ... vacillated across a wide range. It was as though he suddenly stopped having Asperger's when the writer/director needed him to be able to emote "normally."And the characters seemed too contrived. Wealthy family with domineering and controlling father, submissive pill-popping mother, "perfect" elder son, challenged younger son. It was all too transparent. But the composition of the boys' poker group! One wealthy white with a prestige car, one probable Latino with a mother who worked as a maid, one black guy who looked like he was channeling Pharrell, and one South Asian. It was like a little United Nations! And it seemed totally artificial. The acting was not great, either. I love both BD Wong and Joan Chen, but neither performance impressed me. But this may be due to the limitations of the material with which they had to work. The boys (Poker Group plus Nick) were very unevenly matched, from Justin Martin's downright bad acting to Gregg Sulkin's roller-coaster of scene-by-scene good-to-bad-to-good-again. Call me crazy, but this entire film might have worked better if a) the overt references to evangelical Christianity were removed and b) the setting were shifted from the wealthy suburbs of LA to a working class neighborhood in middle America.

ciro_1809 ------ THIS REVIEW CONTAINS VERY MINOR SPOILERS ------I really wanted to love this film, but I couldn't. I liked it, but still, there are too many flaws for me. I watched this knowing absolutely nothing about it. I didn't know the plot, nor the characters, nor the actors, nor anything at all. So there you go for my level of personal expectations: I had none whatsoever. As the movie progressed I got to see some familiar faces such as Tyler Posey (from Teen Wolf) and Kelly Hu (from X2) but, sadly, they didn't play the part.The acting throughout the film is sub par. I won't say PLAIN BAD or anything like that because the actors were all so likable and you could see that they were having a good time and I can really appreciate that, but yeah, they didn't deliver it for the most part. There are, however, -- some -- amazing scenes with Joan Chen and Booboo Stewart, but the only actor who seemingly nailed all of his scenes throughout the movie was Gregg Sulkin (Randy). Pretty good job overall on his part. I was particularly impressed after learning he is a "Disney Kid". I'd keep an eye out for him in the future if I were working in the industry.The plot has some really good messages about tolerance, friendship, love, respect and all that good stuff many people seem to forget to apply to their lives nowadays, but the pacing was off... Felt rushed in some parts and too slow on others. Some characters were also poorly written, specially Randy because of one particular scene. He seemed to be a douche in the beginning, but, off-screen, develops this amazing friendship with Nick all of a sudden and (in the aforementioned scene) lectures him about stuff that he himself doesn't seem to apply in his actions. It could've been easily avoided by giving this scene to another character such as Doug.The editing was a little off, minor complaints here. Some more shots of transition would be nice because some cuts seem too abrupt, but overall it's decent. The direction is also decent, but very technical, which can be a con in this case.Overall it's a pretty decent 'feel-good' type of movie. Based on that, I'd give it 5 out of 10: It's watchable and can be nice, but don't expect something new or extraordinary here. The ending though, is particularly well-done.

EricHutton Undoubted this is the best gay movie I've ever seen in my life and believe me I've watched quite a few of them over the last 52 Years.What's making this movie special is not only the acting of the young man playing the role of a disabled younger brother; all other actors as well are doing a wonderful job in portraying their characters.No matter what race, religion or believe it meets everyone's difficulty in showing who and what you really are. We're just human and that's all there is to it, not more and not less.We're all week inside of us, but at the same time we can all be strong if we strive for it and finally find the courage to be it.Allow me to make a final remark. I've never written a review, but decided to do it due to the fact that I was so impressed!