A Home at the End of the World (2004)

 Coming off the success of 'The Hours', Micheal Cunningham adapted his own novel 'A Home at the End of the World' and there is alot of plot here for a 97 minute movie.

In 1967, at the age of nine, Bobby Morrow witness the death of his older brother, to whom he was very close. The teenager was high on drugs at a party and ran through a sliding glass door thinking it was open. By the time Bobby gets to high school (this is suburban Ohio by the way) his mother has also died. As a freshman he makes friends with Johnathan Glover, a socially awkward youth; Bobby, now a stoner himself, seems to want to recreate the relationship he had with his brother, only with himself in the mentor role.

Bobby and Johnathan get to be really close, even jacking each other off. When Bobby's father also dies he moves in with Johnathan's family (parents played by Matt Frewer and Sissy Spacek). The two continue to experiment for a time, then Jonathan gets uncomfortable and breaks it off. After graduation Johnathan goes off to school in New York, Bobby stays on living with Johnathan's parents and working at a bakery. When Bobby is 24 Johnathan's folks move to Arizona for the fathers health, unsure what to do Bobby reaches out to Johnathan who invites him to move in with him in New York. It is now 1982 and Johnathan is played by Dallas Robert's and Bobby by Colin Farrell.

Johnathan is now the seemingly more grounded one, with a job in advertising and living in an artsy (townhome?) with Claire (Robin Wright) an older, free spirited divorcee. Claire and Johnathan are not romantic, Johnathan is dating men, but they are trying to have a baby together. In short order Johnathan loses his virginity to Claire, he is apparently bisexual, and this disrupts dynamics within the home. The rest of the movie further explores ideas of unconventional found family and it is all very Micheal Cunningham.

For the amount of story here the pacing feels unexpectedly natural. Cunningham's work, even as it depicts subcultures with which I am generally unfamiliar, feels real enough. While the story is fairly radical, it never flies off into cloud cukooland, the performances remain understated, especially Farrell, then known mostly as an action lead. An off the beaten path offering that I thought mostly works, though the critical reaction was mixed and the movie lost money. ***