Keep the Lights On

It was a sparse crowd on this, the first screening of the second day in the fourth week of our regular four-day week of press screenings at the 38th Seattle International Film Festival. (This was first posted on May 22nd, 2012)

This 2012 entry from the USA portrays a decade-long relationship between two young men, one of whom is a documentary film maker working on the life of Avery Willard (always work with what you know!). The other man is a successful lawyer.

We see:

• Thure Lindhardt ("Into the Wild") as Erik the documentarian, a young Dane living the gay life in New York City and enjoying a solid friendship with Claire while staying in touch with his sister Karen.
• Zachary Booth ("Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist") as Paul, the closeted attorney who meets our hero and launches into an intense affair with him.
• Julianne Nicholson ("Shadows and Lies") is Claire, Erik's best friend. Her biological clock is ticking and she considers having a baby with him. He's a bit shocked!

This relationship hits a lot of the standard marks, first flush of passion, the changing situations with friends, careers, jealousy, side interests, drugs, alcohol, rehab, relapse, reconciliation, etc., etc.... Nothing new under the sun, but realistically handled, particularly Erik's concern about Paul's drug use.

Because this spans over a decade, we get to watch the changing furni- ture, wallpaper, computers and phones, while realizing that the people aren't changing all that much. This is unpredictable but formulaic (does that make sense?).

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Here is a link to a trailer:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi878945049/
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