pointer165 in any movie, no matter who the actors are, the script is very important to me , as it should be for everyone involved, especially the actors.This script, story, is so beautifully written..in the first lines"the sloping stairs " of that beautiful staircase..always takes me "home" to anytime in my life, when I felt safe, at home, wherever I was living or visiting at the time or whatever relationship I was in...it's truthful for most of the story...I just do not see a person with AIDS being accepted into the USA from the UK ..but all done for the story...and the stage version must have been just as incredible..it takes you from a beautiful summer, from several different couples, that have been invited to a a summer home in the wilderness(it seems), through several seasons and what happens at the end..allot happens in this story that spans lifetimes but done so beautifully

TheLurkingFox I am rarely this severe. In fact, I usually am rather indulgent with movies dealing with gay themes, because there are so few of them. But this one takes the cake. I honestly haven't seen many films that bad in my life. Maybe The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was this bad. Anyway, back to THIS story. Wait, sorry, there IS no story. No plot. This is just some days in the life of people we don't care about, we never learn to care about, talking about things we don't care about and doing things not even them care about. This film is like a pathetic mix between Longtime Companion (for the AIDS theme and the "one day in the life of" idea) and The Boys in the Band (because... You know. 8 gay men, talking). But it takes the worst of both of these fantastic films and makes a cliché-filled, boring, dull movie out of it. And there you really realize that it takes, indeed, a lot of talent to write (whether in a screenplay or staged play) about characters that the audience doesn't know and make them interesting without a plot. After all, in TBITB or in Longtime Companion, there isn't much plot either, but the characters are interesting in and for themselves. You want to know more about them, you are moved by them and by what happens to them. TBITB is about ONE night in the life of some people, and still by the end of the movie I felt like I knew them. L!V!C! is about half a dozen days in the life of some people, and still in the end I don't know anything about them. I don't know what unites them - they're supposedly friends but they don't get along with each other -, I don't know what drives them - but I know they drive a Volvo -, and I don't even believe them. It isn't funny or witty - though it desperately tries to be - and it's not campy - even if one of them like musicals -. It's just cliché and and boring. Anyway, I really feel like I've lost 2 hours of my life by watching this movie. Thank god I saw it for free!

Neil Doyle Adapted from an off-Broadway play, the story has a dancer (STEPHEN BOGARDUS) inviting his friends to spend the summer at his secluded 19th Century mansion in upstate New York (with Canadian locations substituting for NY). The characters are stock gay men, the kind that exist in other plays like THE BOYS IN THE BAND--only this time none of them are quite interesting enough to care about.All of them, it seems, are living under the threat of AIDS, so we have reminders of LONGTIME COMPANION here too. Most of the performances are okay--nothing really subtle here--but JASON Alexander as the campiest one who hides his anxieties with an unflappable sense of humor seems a bit out of place when it comes to the serious scenes. JUSTIN KIRK does a nice job as a blind boy whose brief fling with handsome RANDY BECKER gets him into more trouble than he can handle. BECKER is the young Hispanic dancer who flaunts his sexuality at every turn.There's some casual frontal nudity for all the skinny dipping scenes, but the sentiment gets sticky whenever the serious aspects are touched. JOHN GLOVER, as twin brothers as different as night and day, gives the most professional performance.Not likely to appeal to a wide audience, it's got some good moments but the slim plot line wears thin after the first hour. The characters are all a bit too shallow to make a deep or lasting impression and there are too many mawkish and cloying moments in times of stress.

gftbiloxi Terrance McNally's LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! was a Tony-winning powerhouse on the New York stage--but the same cannot be said of the play's screen adaptation, which plays like a yuppie version of BOYS IN THE BAND that has unexpectedly collided with ON GOLDEN POND... but without much benefit to either.The story itself concerns a group of eight gay men who meet at an isolated but lavish country house for summer weekends and who thrash out their various hopes, desires, and relationships in the process. In this sort of ensemble piece, where the story is more about people than plot, the cast is key--and in truth the cast is quite fine, with John Glover a particular standout in the dual role of John and James Jeckyll.Trouble is, the gifts of the cast are repeatedly undercut by some of the most uninspired direction and cinematography going, and after a while it all begins to acquire a strangely superficial quality. I laughed now and then, I felt moved now and then, and I was occasionally impressed with some of the dramatic ideas involved. But when the final credits rolled I felt the film as a whole lacked any significant impact. The cast, however, makes it worth the effort.Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer