Customer Reviews

The Everlasting Secret Family

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Why am I surprised? In these days is easy to find some movies with deleted scenes. I don't want to buy or watch movies without the original content. It is like take a look at half of Mona Lisa, don't you think? Why this studios not release the whole movie? :(
(sorry for my bad English)

Javier.
Spain.

"The Everlasting Secret Family" is a tale of gay relationship management set in south-east Australia in the late 1980s. The set-up involves a senator (played by Arthur Dignam), aided by a widespread network, who has arranged to take on a high school Youth lover (played by Mark Lee). The Youth adapts, but needs to navigate challenges as the senator's life evolves.

The direction and pacing are excellent. There are many twists, all with a counterpoint of fears and regrets expressed in side story lines. There are several successful sets involving parties and public meals. The ending is delightfully wicked.

The two main eye-candy characters, the Youth and one other, both supply good skin shots.

The major cheat of the movie is that these two attractive characters seem to be played by actors in their late twenties, rather than in their early and middle teens as the written script would suggest. (Of course, "Hamlet" won an Oscar with Olivier at 40.) Reimagining the movie with age-accurate actors gives it a different feel.

The DVD has some cheating too. Other than five chapter stops there are no extras. Although there are two pictures on the DVD cover of a shirtless Youth chained up, they don't appear on the DVD.

This is an enjoyable fantasy.

I saw this movie in a small art theatre near Los Angeles fifteen years ago and have never forgotten it. Every so often I would engage in a search for it, but never had any luck till now. Like the previous reviewer, I wouldn't want to spoil anyone's pleasure by recounting the excellent plot, which is full of surprises and fun. But let me say that the actors are talented, attractive, and sexy and the story is exciting and provocative. Gay or not, you will really like it, if you have a pulse. If you're gay, even just a little bit, you may find it enthralling. Now that it's available at last in DVD, one of the top items in my life's important agenda is now satisfied. I envy you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see THE EVERLASTING SECRET FAMILY for the first time. You can only see it the first time once, so in that way it's like losing your virginity: it's out of this world wonderful, and you'll never forget it!

This Movie somehow really grabbed me. The Acting was really good and the plot was great. As funny as it may sound it had some deepness to it which really pulled me in I Highly recommend This Movie.

The Everlasting Secret Family is a fascinating Australian film that depicts a secret homosexual society that has infiltrated in a silent, subtle way the very upper strata of Australian politics and upper class life. It is a wicked, sexy tale and I won't go into any details of the plot lest I ruin the clever surprises that make this movie very entertaining.

Suffice it to say, the acting is quite good, the direction fluent, and you'll enjoy the quirky twists in the plot. In a way, it's refreshing to see a movie where a gay underground puts the screws to a listlessly banal straight society.

As seen, it is a sort of an Australian version of a Dorian Grey's story about an incredibly handsome school boy looking and acting quite mature from the very beginning, who started his working career as a toy-boy to the Senator et al this Senator pointed at, about a doctor (Australian-made Dr. FAUST?) keeping a hustler young-looking (as near the same age of a 17 years junior then Senator's son) in his thirties.

Eventually, not so many recent viewers remember real prototypes' names of characters screened, and a reviewer estimates this work from a merely neutral impression gained from a confusing message hard to forget this film accentuated:
1. Young lover walked away with murdering a Supreme judge-a submissive S&M practitioner barely taking off his wig and cloak for jumping into a bed for kinky sex-sessions paid
2. Gratifying both men (for gain, as a bottom regularly-but a dominant Master in S&M play) and a woman (who, where she appeared from, what for-it is, anyway, unclear contextually), at some stage a young Senator's lover appeared in a drag as trance-gender inclinations were something natural for a bi-playing versatile male
3. Senator's son is also a same gender attracted and such a development was, as one could say after watching this movie, a part of a Senator's lover's plan to secure the income-providing, that is a space near a same gender attracted people's representative, in other words, son's sexuality is a choice cultivated by a gay character by subtly deploying "pedophilic skills".
So, son was seeking favors from father's lover because of being rather seduced by the entourage plus having inherited "bad" genes also it didn't work by this way as it was proven scientifically more recently.

Technically, some scenes look like being taken from the sky, with a little link to events previous, pushing a viewer into suggestion that this movie version was edited thoroughly. No extras.

Well, Australia is still a lucky country because one could sometimes acquire this and two other DVDs, new and intact, plastic-wrapped, in a local milk bar at a price total cheaper than a cap of coffee there.

Five stars marked this movie for the beautiful cast well performing as a real story was, perhaps, far remote from what this show immortalized.

Contrary to what is says in the title promo the movie was made and released in 1989, not in 2011. Just because Amazon got to show it now, it does not make it a modern gay-themed movie.

"THE EVERLASTING SECRET FAMILY" features the most STELLAR DISPLAY OF SELFISHNESS I'VE EVER WITNESSED ON FILM. Not an iota or jot of altruism here; just ME-ME-ME
flagrantly integrated with a megadose of wrenching IMM-and-AM-orality. Viewing this production may produce something akin to temporary ethical amnesia.

But the Australians know how to craft cinematic art.

This film is dated in every way, and creepy beyond explanation.

It depicts a supposed culture of older, aristocratic men who can afford to "keep" younger men as lovers in a possessive, manipulative way. It isn't love or attraction as much as it seems to be simple lust and convenience.

The creepy weirdness increases when some of the characters decide they are "entitled" to interludes with some of the boys because they have been good servants for so many years. The mother is creepy too and does her best to manipulate the situation to her advantage, as does the main character.

So, this is an artificially artsy-feeling movie full of scheming scoundrels looking for a good time at someone else's expense. It doesn't get better at the end.

This must have been ground-breaking for it's time, and it's interesting enough to watch through, but it's value (and it's drawbacks) is in it's age and it's (probably) accurate depiction of prevailing attitudes and stereotypes of several decades ago. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone except the die-hard fan of gay movies.

Don't be fooled by the 2004 DVD release date. This movie was made in the 1960s and has primitive film coloring and a horrid sound track that grates.

The acting is competent though not inspired, which earns the movie two stars rather than one, and there were a few interesting and entertaining devices. One can imagine how daring this must have been for the period in which it was released. The plot, which is most unusual, earns some credit by its originality, at least among movies, if not books.

However, overall the film takes a sordid, bleak and depressing view of the subject matter, which is typical of older films. The politician is portrayed as snobbish, cold, controlling, humorless and unlikable. The youth, who is supposed to be sixteen, can't be a day younger than thirty. The courtship (mentioned above in the movie description) does not exist, as the young man is simply plucked out of a classroom with no explanation. The movie description would have you believe this film is somehow deeper, sensitive or more intelligent than it actually is.

At best, this film is a crude rip-off of "Dorian Gray". At worst, it's an indulgence of the grossest stereotypes from yesteryear.

This was probably judged a fair film for the genre back when it was one of a very few, but nowadays there are so many other, better films available, that I cannot imagine any reason for bothering with this one, other than nostalgia, which probably is the excuse for the positive reviews you read here.