Postcards from London
Original post date: 16 January 2019
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Is up-and-coming English actor Harris Dickinson in danger of being typecast? So far, at least in screen roles, he is specializing in beautiful young men at risk of becoming one of the world’s victims. He was on a sexually-confused, downward spiral in Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats. Then his hedonistic teenage adventures in Rome were interrupted by a world-famous kidnapping in Danny Boyle’s series Trust. In this flick he is a naïve but game young lad from the north of England drawn to the capital city with little more than an open attitude and an optimistic nature. Within minutes of arriving, he is befriended by a wise homeless man and then recruited by an internationally diverse group of attractive young men into the glamorous world of rent boys cum artistic models. If Beach Rats was all bleak and neo-realist, then Postcards from London is all gaudy and bright with the make-believe artifice of wonderfully decorated sound stages. If you are a fan of the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, then you will be in your element here. The conceit is that Jim and his fellow hustling Adonises are desired mostly for their participation in their kinky clients’ elaborately faithful re-creations of classic Renaissance paintings spotlighting the beauty of the male form. Things take an interesting turn when Jim is drafted for a lucrative side career because, in an apparent nod to Dario Argento, his Stendahl syndrome makes him extremely valuable as a virtual art-forgery detector. The film is whimsical and smart and a lot of fun for all the art and literary references. Moreover, Dickinson (who reportedly had to go on a calorie-laden crash diet to soften his extremely-toned body to be convincing as a real person in Beach Rats) is perfectly suited to pose as an idealized male figure in the various art re-creations. The writer/director is Steve McLean, and this follows by nearly a quarter-century his previous feature, the darker, much-grimmer Postcards from America.
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Is up-and-coming English actor Harris Dickinson in danger of being typecast? So far, at least in screen roles, he is specializing in beautiful young men at risk of becoming one of the world’s victims. He was on a sexually-confused, downward spiral in Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats. Then his hedonistic teenage adventures in Rome were interrupted by a world-famous kidnapping in Danny Boyle’s series Trust. In this flick he is a naïve but game young lad from the north of England drawn to the capital city with little more than an open attitude and an optimistic nature. Within minutes of arriving, he is befriended by a wise homeless man and then recruited by an internationally diverse group of attractive young men into the glamorous world of rent boys cum artistic models. If Beach Rats was all bleak and neo-realist, then Postcards from London is all gaudy and bright with the make-believe artifice of wonderfully decorated sound stages. If you are a fan of the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, then you will be in your element here. The conceit is that Jim and his fellow hustling Adonises are desired mostly for their participation in their kinky clients’ elaborately faithful re-creations of classic Renaissance paintings spotlighting the beauty of the male form. Things take an interesting turn when Jim is drafted for a lucrative side career because, in an apparent nod to Dario Argento, his Stendahl syndrome makes him extremely valuable as a virtual art-forgery detector. The film is whimsical and smart and a lot of fun for all the art and literary references. Moreover, Dickinson (who reportedly had to go on a calorie-laden crash diet to soften his extremely-toned body to be convincing as a real person in Beach Rats) is perfectly suited to pose as an idealized male figure in the various art re-creations. The writer/director is Steve McLean, and this follows by nearly a quarter-century his previous feature, the darker, much-grimmer Postcards from America.
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