A Home at the End of the World

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

All I can say is thank god for the smaller independent sides to major movie studios like Warner Independent. They have the clout and the distribution connections of their parent companies while maintaining a far enough distance to make films that actually stretch the boundaries of what is “acceptable” filmmaking.

A Home at the End of the World is a film that would never be put out directly by Warner Bros. because of its controversial nature and subject matter. Ironically, however, it’s also a film that topples every one of their big budget fiascos this season (i.e. the incredibly disappointing Catwoman).

For months now whenever anyone mentioned this film the first thing that came to mind was Colin Farrell’s full frontal nudity scenes. He himself, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly said, “Let me tell you, it ain’t nothing to f---in’ write home about.” But as we all know, it is something we’d be writing about… that is, had we seen it!

Both the studio and Colin himself, claim that the shot was too distracting to be left in the film. (Boooo!!!!) Just f.y.i. to the studio heads and Mr. Farrell, NOT having it in has turned out to be even more distracting! The audience ends up watching for where the shot would have been and then are ultimately pissed off when they cut away! Showing something like that on screen, for lack of a better term, takes balls. Not showing it after all this hype is a bit of a cop-out.

(Sigh… the story of most of our lives, waiting for Colin Farrell’s penis to show up and it Never does!)

On the up side, (no pun intended) the movie is amazing all on its own. The relationships which exist between the characters are so different from anything that we’ve seen before that you have no choice but to be drawn into these people’s lives.

Colin Farrell plays Bobby, a boy whose young life is defined by the tragedy surrounding it. The movie opens with a scene that will have the closed minded conservatives of the country running to the protests lines because of its misunderstood implied incestual undertone. The actual purpose of the scene, which shows a five year old Bobby walking in on his brother having sex and then crawling into bed with him after his girlfriend leaves, is to reveal the amazing love that exists between Bobby and his older brother, not to imply a sexual bond between the two. This relationship, more than any other in the film, is what sets the tone for Bobby’s life.

After