Blue Film
Director – Elliot Tuttle – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 85m
*****
As a gay cam performer visits an older punter to discover they have a shared past, their encounter breaks many taboos – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 11th
Somewhere in L.A., Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore) appears in his underwear on cam to web audiences. His platform of choice allows punters to tip him cash tokens as and when either he encourages them or they like what they see. And, who knows, at the end of the night, if you pay the right amount, he might come round to your house…
One of his punters tonight is a much older man (Reed Birney) whose face is concealed by a balaclava mask. Who tips, then turns him off and lies back to relax to music. Later, Aaron will come round for this one night to this punter’s house. Unaware that they have a shared connection from their past lives.
Disturbingly, there are also snippets in the mix of home video footage of a small boy. Wholly innocent footage – or it would be were it not for its one-way communication sex cam context – which renders this footage quite upsetting as your mind starts to make connections warranted or unwarranted.
This is a movie which presents a difficulty to the reviewer. It contains a certain quantity of gay sex, explicit in the sense that you always know what’s going on, never explicit in the sense that you never see any graphic detail.
The difficulty arrives in the fact that the narrative – essentially two people in a series of rooms, one online, the rest in one house, mostly talking but on occasion engaging in sexual activity which may or may not be consensual – constantly breaks taboos, one after another. It plunges deep into the human psyche, sexual and otherwise, and every time you think you have a handle on it, that you think you know where it’s going, it pulls the rug out from under your feet, shifts the ground, and takes you in even deeper. Most movies, I contend, will not be ruined by knowing all, or part, of the plot beforehand. This one, beyond its initial setup, will. (The production company’s excellent trailer, incidentally, gives stuff away but nothing that really spoils the viewing experience.)
It’s essentially a chamber movie, with two superb acting performances at its core. It has about it echoes of Cam (Daniel Goldhaber, 2018); Good Luck to you, Leo Grande, Sophie Hyde, 2022) or the one-way mirror confessional scene of Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders,1984). Confessional is absolutely the right word, because at some point the older man, who is from out of town and has rented the house where the encounter takes place for just one night, reveals that he started going back to church and his priest knows he is here, even if the priest didn’t give the trip his blessing. Never exploitative but, rather, compelling throughout, this is an extraordinary exploration of human life and sexuality in all its messy, confusing, complex… I’m searching for the right word here, because it definitely isn’t ‘glory’. Maybe ‘regret’. Maybe ‘brokenness’.
I am reminded of the Christian tenet that man is made in the image of God, but that that image is marred. (If you want the whole religious bit, the image of God is marred in man by Original Sin, the Fall, the disobedience and subsequent moving away from God in the Garden of Eden: see Genesis 2 – 3). While this film might not put it in those terms, that’s what it is about. None of us are perfect, all of us have to one degree or another done bad things, and coming to terms with those things (and the people involved in them) can be cathartic, painful and all too often not a place of easy, pat answers. The word ‘honesty’ comes up a lot, and is indubitably key to the film’s purposes.
It’s a small film, and a small release, but a film worthy of your attention that’s well worth seeking out. Be prepared to be shaken, and have a long conversation in the pub afterwards. Whatever else this film is, it’s not simplistic.
If you have no idea what a ‘pederast’ is, as the film’s younger character doesn’t, this is the place to find out. In passing, the narrative’s conversation points out some stark differences between the ancient Romans’ view of sex and that of our own, contemporary Western society. The film is likely to provoke controversy dealing as it does with various taboo areas, but it represents an honest attempt to wrestle with some extremely difficult and dark aspects of the human condition, and as such is highly recommended.
Blue Film is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 11th.
Trailer: