Customer Reviews

Loverboy

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kevin Bacon directs this bizarre story adapted by Hannah Shakespeare from
Victoria Redel's novel about maternal obsession providing his wife Kyra Sedgwick with a role to spotlight just how fine an actress she truly is. The story is disturbing but vitally interesting. There are problems with the film, the most annoying one being that the dialogue is practically inaudible due to the miking and, more so, due to the musical score which covers all the lines to the point of making the movie seem like a silent movie with music from the pit! Such a shame, because it SEEMS like this is a good script with a lot to say.

Emily (Kyra Sedgwick) is damaged goods, a woman neglected as a child who is determined to have a baby and raise it on her own, lavishing the child with all the affection and attention she desperately missed. After numerous attempts to get pregnant from any available man, she finally succeeds impregnation with Campbell Scott and gives birth to Paul (Dominic Scott Kay) who becomes her entire reason for living. She sequesters Paul form the world, gives him everything a child could want - except association with peers. Her obsession grows to the point of mental illness and the results are devastating. Along the way Emily and Paul encounter people who seek to intervene in their lives: these people are played with great style by cameo roles of Sandra Bullock, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei, Matt Dillon, Blair Brown and even some of the Bacon's own children! It is a star cast obviously committed to Kevin Bacon's vision of this star vehicle for Sedgwick.

The pacing, cinematography, and acting are all first rate. If only the ugly and senseless music hadn't submerged the dialogue (oddly enough the score was written by Michael Bacon!), this would be an Oscar contender. Grady Harp, September 06

Obviously a vanity project by Kevin Bacon for his lovely wife Kyra Sedgwick, Loverboy features a bizarre almost startling performance by Sedgwick. Put the whole movie down as an admirable failure, it's a good try, but the movie is constantly at odds with itself as though Bacon is struggling to achieve the right form and tone.

From the opening scenes we know there is something not quite right with Emily Stoll (Sedgwick). She's a 30-ish single woman whose parents have left her a large trust fund. She conveniently doesn't have to work and has no interest in establishing a conventional home or relationships. All she wants is a child and is determined to have one by any means necessary.

She travels the country in search of men whose genetic material meets her exacting standards. After countless fruitless sexual encounters - including a quickie amongst the stacks of a library - Emily returns to her home in Chicago dispirited and at a loss. Finally, however, gets pregnant by a poetic commodities trader (Campbell Scott) whom she meets in the elevator.

Nine months later, voila: a child is born unto her, she names him Paul and in a voice over, she describes her son's early years as some kind of idyllic existence. The story then jumps to when Paul (Dominic Scott Kay) is 6-years-old and developing an independent streak -- which mom views as a full-blown crisis, trouble sets in when Paul asks to go to school and mix with all the other boys and girls.

Home-schooled in bizarre, haphazard fashion by an overeducated mother with no grasp of age-appropriate teaching, he quickly tires of Mum's games and camping out in the back yard. Because Emily is unhinged from the start and wants Paul all to herself, she takes Paul on an abrupt "vacation" trip to a remote, off-season coastal cottage where they can be alone together.

But even here there are nosy, overfriendly neighbors, with whom Paul gets along dismayingly well, especially the hunky geologist/fisherman Mark (a really hot Matt Dillon), who clearly wouldn't mind completing the "family" as husband and father. As Emily feels as though she's beginning to lose control of Paul, her world begins to spiral out of control and she panics even more when he eventually goes to school and she can't bear her "genius" son to become "just" a normal kid.

Periodically Bacon inserts flashbacks starring himself and Marisa Tomei as Emily's mother and father and Sandra Bullock as a kindly and hip neighbor in a half-hearted attempt to explain why she turned out the way she did. Emily's feelings of security were crushed by her parents who were too absorbed in each other to take much of an interest in their little girl.

Apart from the awkward structure, what stops this film being a good film is the intrusive soundtrack that seems to deaden much of the obsessive mother-son drama-taking place. Likewise the visual aspects are muddled with interludes of soft-focus, skewed angles and distorted lenses. If all this means to illustrate that Emily lives in a dream world, it backfires - her hyper-controlling nature is at odds with a showy production that's all over the map.

Sedgwick is very good here; it's just a pity that she can never seem to rise above the material she's been given. Meanwhile, the events leading up to the fateful climax feel like they're taken from a completely different movie. There are some nice moments, and even disturbing ones - but the over-stylized gimmicky production values that don't really work end up hampering and weighing down what could possibly have been a good film. Mike Leonard September 06.

I was expecting a great movie from Kevin Bacon. The movie is OK, This novel turned motion picture debut by Kevin has all the ingredients of an interesting and moving film. Unfortunately these ingredients seem to fade away slowly as the film progresses.

Kyra Sedgwick who not only acts terrifically throughout the film, but also narrates it as well. Her character, a woman obsessed with having a child, and keeping it to herself forever, loses its flavor as it becomes more and more ridiculous. The small boy played by Dominic Scott Kay, should have been either re-cast or re-shot several times. His artificial deliveries take away from the seriousness of Sedgwicks maternal character again and again, and seem to make the film comical at times when it should not be. She's that crazy because of her creation, and we learn from flashback scenes, that her parents (Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei) were really ''different'' and she wanted her neighbor (Sandra Bullock) to be her mother. I will say that Kyra Sedgewick shows a great range of emotions and in certain parts, she has a strong resemblance to a younger Glenn Close. Mat Dillon, as a love interest, didn't work well into this screenplay, but Dillon did his best with the part he was given.

The flaws are over the screenplay that never goes deep in the mother's craziness, and has some confusing parts as the one that happens in the beach and the soundtrack, that is a bit goofy and too funny, when it needed to be more serious. While watching this film you can't help but get the impression that this film was directed by a first-time Hollywood director, who called in a few favors from some of his famous friends.

Even though Kevin manage to give us an interesting plot his attempt wasn't completely successful. Beside that `LoverBoy' is a decent film provided by some great leading actors.

I rented this movie on a whim because I remembered the trailer being pretty interesting. Let me just say that I was not disappointed. Kyra Sedgwick was brilliant as Emily, and I was really able to identify with her. As a mother of a two-year-old boy, I found the first three-fourths of this movie to be oddly inspiring. Possibly due to my young age of 21, I've never wanted to be the typical soccer-mom so I found Emily's eclectic style of parenting to be rather appealing. For example, the splatter-painting Paul's room, camping out in the backyard, the 'roam abouts', etc. One of my absolute favorite scenes is where Emily plays an invisible flute in the rain as Paul conducts (if anyone knows the name of the song, please let me know). On the other hand, Emily's obsession went off the deep end towards the end of the movie and you can actually see her just going over the edge as Paul pushes for more independence. All of that being said, I think that it's much easier for a mother to sympathize with Emily rather than condemn her in the end. This has definitely become my favorite movie just because it is so different, and so sadly beautiful. I also picked up the book a few weeks ago, and it was wonderful as well.

I had no idea this movie was based on a novel. Had I known that, I would have read the book first. It was a very dramatic film but is not a complete downer. It had a bittersweet ending which took me by surprise, although the first segment of the ending is predictable. I would have preferred to have the ending the same way it happened in the book, but Kevin Bacon decided to change it to show the beauty and value of the relationship between Kyra Sedgwick's character and her son Paul.

Basically, this story is about a woman who grew up being neglected by her parents and demonstrates what can and does happen when the child grows up. Neglecting children is often worse than physically abusing them. One of the strange things about humans is that whatever terrorizes and tramatizes us in childhood, becomes a source of attraction later in life. In this film we see a woman who was tramatized by neglect from her parents (physically, emotionally and mentally). Her parents always put her down, embarrassed her, showed her hardly any affection. Her parents were so close to each other yet so far from her. As the little girl becomes a woman, she becomes a loner or an outcast and is eccentric. When she has a child by some random man she hooked up with, she becomes close to the child, yet so far from him. So far from him in that she doesn't care about his true feelings and doesn't care about him as a person and this is the same thing which traumitized her as a child (neglect). All she is wants from him is love... forever.

Fine performances from everyone... 'specially Kyra and Dominic.

Dominic - this litle boy has a bright future ahead of him if he stays with acting... splendid job. His character was mature but innocent and smart enough to know that his mother calling him "loverboy" isn't exactly normal.

Kyra - I was glued to the screen, I couldn't take my eyes off her. She nailed her character... neglected by her own parents and vowing to be the only person that matters to her son. The clashing between them of her wanting to keep him close and Paul wanting to have a "normal" life were done.

The scene in the school with Paul's teacher and principal... you know what's going to happen after but when the ending comes it's still a bit of a shock.

Despite all Emily's faults, Paul still honors her at the end. You can tell that he still loved his mom despite her crazy antics...

Kevin and Marisa were hilarious as Emily's parents. .. they had good chemistry together.

It is a little hard to feel sympathy for Emily.. she's a complex woman, maybe with therapy she might not have turned out that way *shrugs* Who knows?

The only downside to the film was the music... sometimes it drowned out the actors words. Maybe if they re-package this one day, they can edit the soundtrack better.

Anyways, Some people may find this movie disturbing but I thought it was a good film.

Kevin Bacon's debut as feature film director has gifted actors as the cast: in addition to Kyra Sedgwick who plays the overprotective mother, the film has cameos from Matt Dillion, Campbell Scott, Oliver Platt, Sandra Bullock, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon himself. No wonder someone thought of "Six Steps to Kevin Bacon" game.

Kyra Sedgwick plays Emily, a possessive mother who would not let her only son Paul or her "Loverboy" go outside the world she created for him. But as Paul grows up, he refuses to stay where he is now, disobeying his own mother. He wants to go to school (Emily wouldn't allow that); he wants to live like any other kids in the neighborhood, and so on, but the mother who loves her son too much sees things differently.

That much I knew before watching the film, but `Loverboy' proved to be also another thing to me. Kyra Segdwick's character is at times treated with upbeat touch especially when she is trying to be pregnant, and her character is interesting to see at first with some humor in her. She is not particularly sympathetic, but the script at least attempts to delve into the inner darkness or loneliness behind her beauty and confidence, and it succeeds to some extent when Campbell Scott briefly appears before her in a hotel room.

But here is another thing I didn't expect, and that's frequent flashbacks where Emily's childhood is depicted. The film reverts to the days when Emily was a lonely ten-year-old girl (played by Kyra Sedgwick's own daughter Sosie) over and over again, and the portraits of Emily's swinging-70s parents (played by Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon). The repetitious scenes never convince us why the husband and wife who love each other so much should neglect their own daughter, or why she must seek for help in her neighbor Mrs. Harker (effective Sandra Bullock).

My impression is that for all its short running time (that is less than 90 minutes) `Loverboy' tries to show too many things in it. We don't need slant camera angel or Kyra Sedgewick's sexy dress here (do we?) when it is her character that really matters. The film's tone is often inconsistent (some scenes are a bit too silly to me) with its intricate narrative style, which should be more simple. I really like Kyra Sedgewick with her acting (or overacting) in this film, but its story can be more effectively told in the right order.

"Loverboy" is a creepy, little-seen drama that marks the directorial debut of Kevin Bacon and stars Kyra Sedgwick. I wanted to see the movie because I like Kevin Bacon and it's always interesting to see actors trying to direct, I knew little about the synopsis, and whether you love or hate this movie...I doubt you'll forget it afterwards. This is a creepy movie, that could be creepier in different hands but Bacon takes a film that has echoes of movies like "The Virgin Suicides" and every other "mother who loves son way too much" movie and saves it from becoming a soap opera. Sedgwick gives a dynamite performance as Emily, a woman who desperately wants to have a child. Being neglected as a child by her Romeo & Juliet-like parents (played by Bacon and Marisa Tomei), she wants to have a perfect child whom she can be with for the rest of her life. When she finally conceives a baby with a man (Campbell Scott) during a one night stand, she moves as far away from other people as she can and begins to raise her son Paul whom she dubs "Loverboy." As Paul gets older, he begins to want to go to school. But the outside world overwhelms Emily and she desperately tries to keep her and her son together. A movie with incestual overtones and one of the more haunting endings I've seen out of a film from 2006, "Loverboy" is not a film that will appeal to the masses. The film is not perfect, but it is good and Bacon is a good director who worked with a great cinematographer on the film. The movie has a lot of atmosphere to it and features some beautiful cinematography and art direction. The script is very well written, because it does come very close to going over-the-top. This material is difficult to handle without it becoming a farce and it's handled really well (after all the screenwriter's last name is Shakespeare, so it better be good right?). As for Sedgwick, she gives an incredible performance that didn't gain a lot of notice. She narrates the entire film and as a person who is not incredibly fond of voice-over, I was surprised to find how creepy it is. Sedgwick doesn't just act in this film, she gives a PERFORMANCE. She really gets into the soul of the character and doesn't make her unbelievable for one second. I'm not sure what message the film is trying to send, if it is trying to send, but it hits home during the ending. The movie has a lot of famous (and good) actors in it including Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, and Oliver Platt to name a few. As I said, not a lot of people will like this movie. But IT IS well done and worth the watch. I guarantee you'll be thinking about the ending days later.

GRADE: B+

Kyra Sedgwick turns in a fine performance as a woman obsessed with having a perfect child. But somehow, the film just plods along without becoming as disturbing as it should have been.

Sometimes even when a movie is competently made and features fine performances, you have to wonder - "Why was the story ever written and what should we feel about it?"
That's the problem with Kevin Bacon's LOVERBOY. Starring his wife Kyra Sedgwick (THE CLOSER), this film is a tragic, bitter look at a mother's obsessive love for her son. An overly theatrical narrative by Kyra lets us know right away about her sexual promiscuity, moving from city to city and even using the sperm bank to mother "the perfect child." When a chance encounter with a handsome businessman finally results in her conception, she gives birth to Paul (whom she calls LOVERBOY). Paul is a bright, sensitive child and well played by Dominic Scott Kay. But mama's love is unusually abnormally obsessive; she doesn't want to share him with anyone and ultimately makes him almost a prisoner. Little Paul, however, wants a father's love and wants desperately to be normal. Much of the action takes place inside a car and it isn't long before you can pretty much predict where the film is going.
Sedgwick gives a dark, disturbing performance, but she's not likeable and attempts at justifying her behavior don't really condone her actions. There are a lot of "cameo" style performances from Blair Brown as a neighborly neighbor; Matt Damon as a handsome fisherman who tries to give Paul some masculine attention; Campbell Scott as the father whose one night stand produces Paul; Sandra Bullock as a mysterious neighbor lady whose relationship with Kyra is never fully realized; director Bacon and Marisa Tomei are seen in flashbacks as Kyra's weird, hippie parents; and Oliver Platt is a school worker with interests in Kyra's odd behavior. Bacon captures some wonderful images and the movie is certainly earnest in its presentation, but it's such a downer I can't fully understand what the movie's purpose is.