Review by Joseph Baneth Allen
By: Joseph Baneth Allen
Just finished watching "Seek" released by TLA Releasing.
Convoluted is the best way to describe this thankfully short movie - clocking in at 77 way too long.
Evan, a young gay magazine writer, is hoping to break into the journalistic big ti...
Read More
Just finished watching "Seek" released by TLA Releasing.
Convoluted is the best way to describe this thankfully short movie - clocking in at 77 way too long.
Evan, a young gay magazine writer, is hoping to break into the journalistic big time and get hired by Canada's leading daily newspaper. The editor offers him instead a chance to prove himself by writing freelance articles - his first assignment is an article on the city's night life and those who make it a partying place when the sun goes down.
Enter Hunter - the top party planner in the city.
Naturally Evan, who is still smarting from a breakup, meets Hunter for this article and begins a series of interviews with Hunter and his team of party planners. Pity there's not characters that the audience can root for.
"Seek" is supposed to be a "fresh and innovative" look at gay life. If so, then the convoluted plot twist that attempts to make "Seek" an intense psychological "anything to get my name in the papers" stalker drama makes complete and utter has of this movie.
Not Recommended!
Zero Stars!
Review by Amos Lassen
By: Amos Lassen
All of us want to be wanted and acceptance in life is very important and what many of us strive for. If you remember back to your high school days, you probably remember how important being in a group was and once you achieved that then you discovere...
Read More
All of us want to be wanted and acceptance in life is very important and what many of us strive for. If you remember back to your high school days, you probably remember how important being in a group was and once you achieved that then you discovered that there was another group and so on. Most of us are never totally satisfied because "the grass is always greener". However, we need to start somewhere.
Evan Brisby (Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski) is a young writer who has to deal with lost love while at the same time he has a story about a club promoter who is the king of his turf, which is a playground of music, lights and drag queens. He finds himself amid a group of young people in their twenties who all are seeking acceptance. They, like everyone else, want to feel that they are wanted but they work so hard at it, they miss their chances or settle for something else.
It all began when Evan awoke and thought he saw Jordan (Matthew Ludwinski), a love he had lost. But Jordan was not there and Evan is having a hard time letting go of him. He finally gets a chance to get his mind off of Jordan when the editor, Joe Thorpe (Graham Gautier) of a big newspaper assigns him to a story on the nightlife of the city. This is a real break for him, as his present job with a gay magazine, XUS, does not seem to be going anywhere. If he writes a good story his career could take off.
There is something else this film does-it shows how memories affect the ways we live. Evan has wonderful memories of Jordan and we see his memories visualized but we must also note that memories can cause nostalgia making them seem more beautiful than they really are.
Evan had to find a hook for his article and soon he found it right in front of him. When he returned to the XUS office, Aidan Starr (Jonathan Nathaniel), the magazine's "society" (read that as party) editor tells him not to forget that the big 888 Party is coming up (I imagine this to the kind of circuit parties that are prevalent in gay life) and suggests that they go together. Evan does not seem to want to go and we learn that it was at the same 888 Party the year before that he met Jordan (which we see in flashback).
Evan goes to the party and when he and Aidan dance, he has visions of Jordan and, of course, this affects his possibility of having a good time and he decides to leave. As he does, he meets Hunter (Ryan Fisher) and learns that he promotes parties and 888 is his. Ryan, we learn, promotes nightlife and when Evan hears this, a light goes off in his mind. This is the hook for his big story. A profile of Hunter and the denizens of the night is just what he needs.
Evan, all the while, deals with the loss of Jordan and tries to push it aside by immersing himself in his work and interviewing people who have been able to find what they are looking for in the night of the city. He is left with knowing that if he wants to be happy, he will have to go after happiness because it is not going to come knocking on his door.
If there is a theme here, it is the search for happiness or for some substitute for it. Hence the title "Seek"-we are all seekers looking for something that will make us better than we are. Many times, as we see here, what we are looking for is right there but we are so busy searching that we do not see it.
Screenwriter and director Eric Henry set his movie in Toronto, Ontario, a place he knows well and I understand that he wrote the screenplay based loosely on his own life. Like it so many other places, many gay men live to party and partying usually happens at night and on weekends. We get the chance to let loose and have fun. Evan, who had a good job with the magazine, still wanted something better and so he tries with a big newspaper.
Everything about the film is fine and fun. The actors are uniformly excellent, the direction is wonderful and the cinematography (Adam Makarenko) makes this a visual feast. Toronto looks beautiful. The music by Kevon Cronin was recorded with the Prague Philharmonic. Keep your eyes open for this film. I love that it allows you to enjoy yourself as it deals with an important issue that leaves us with something to think about. Maybe now, we will take a closer look at ourselves.