LEATHER

US, 2013, 101 minutes, Colour.

Chris Graham, Andrew Glaszek, Jeremy Neal, Glenda Lauten.

Directed by Patrick McGuinn.

This is a gay-themed film for the target audience. It is one of many films, especially from the United States, during the 2000s and 2010s.

The film opens with two boys on a mountain fishing and then moves to 25 years later. The focus of the story is one of the boys, Birch, who has lost his parents and has moved in with the father of the other boy, working for him, woodwork, leather work, bonding with him as a father figure, helping in his illness with a Christian scientist carer.

Then the audience is introduced to the father-son, Andrew, a gay man travelling to his home after an absence from many years, his homophobic father ridiculing him, and taking his very camp partner, Kyle.

While the screenplay focuses on the relationship between Andrew and Kyle, many audiences find Kyle and his camp manner very difficult to take, Andrew suspicious of Birch and his behaviour with his father, and issues of the ownership of the house.

The gay theme between Birch and Andrew does not emerge until almost an hour into the film, the memories of the past, and his antagonism because of Birch’s relationship with his father and his resentment of his father, suspicions against Birch raised by Kyle, and then out of the woods, the swim, some fantasy-like sequences, and the establishing of the relationship.

There is a sequence where Andrew questions Birch about his sexual orientation, Birch declaring that he had not thought about it at all, his just responding in situations.

There is an interesting interlude when Kyle discusses the situation with the therapist-puppeteer who then dramatises the emotional crisis through the puppets.

A lot of the action is contrived and the film relies a lot not on the acting ability of the cast but on their screen presence. It raises some issues for the target audience and some questions for any non-gay audience who sees the film.