ChikPapa Very disappointed :(

Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

ekeby I'm giving it two stars, one for Juliet Stevenson because she got suckered into this mess, and another for the Barcelona scenery. That's it. I practically laughed out loud from the very beginning. I think I could have told you the entire plot after watching 6 minutes of this movie, it was that predictable.My mother used to make these "tsk" sounds when she would see something vulgar on television. To my horror, I heard myself do the same thing repeatedly, an unstoppable involuntary response to the constant barrage of cringe-making dialog.I hate to say this, but this is one movie where if we'd had super buff soap opera actors in the lead roles, it might have made the movie tolerable. Instead we have actors with "real" bodies. That's fine, if you're making a "real" movie. This wasn't. It was soap opera quality from start to finish, and not even a good one.

BILLYBOY-10 Sweet, young, juicy, barely legal teen-bait Paul turns piano sheet music pages for his concert pianist idol who is almost 40 and pasty. Paul stalks him, goes to his hotel and then innocently takes his clothes off and lies on his bed to be massaged and seduced. After a few days of romps in the hay, the pianist dumps the kid and splits. Fast forward where the kid is now humping it up with some other way older guy who Paul knows can further his musical career and then soon is innocently (again?) seduced by the boyfriend/manager/whatever of the first seducer pianist cause he too can open doors for his musical career. Then Paul finds out he has no talent, so apparently settles for dinner parties with the older second hand geezer. His dingy mom shows up, appears to mess things up but actually steers Paul right; they bond lying on the bed together looking at stars on the ceiling. Phooie.

jacquelinekennedy With these words, moued by that wise witch of a piano teacher, Geraldine McEwan, the plot of the film is set.Not having read David Leavitt's "Page-Turner" which may contain different keys to the main character, I am hampered by seeing Bishop's Paul Porterfield through the eyes of Ventura Pons.He's a sacrificial lamb. An initiate to the rites of love. A vessel to be filled.He's an object.As it is, his character shows a reluctance in every stage, from the sexual to the professional. Is he really gay? Is he really interested in piano? Is he really that much in love with Paul Rhys' character? The central theme of the film should've been love, and instead it turns out to be something a little more tawdry -- the pursuit of the freshest of meat by all concerned, a virginal character played with wide-eyed neutrality by Bishop.There are films which show a sensitivity to tackling the necessities of homosexual themes (Will Smith in _Six Degrees of Separation_ comes to mind). I'm not sure if Ventura was aiming this as his introduction to a wider, mostly American audience (hence the accent changes of the British cast), and thus had to rein something in to get that "R" rating, but his gay scenes were laughable. One bare bottom scene after the other.They were like a bad note in a piano recital, which the audience forgives because they anticipate the whole sweep of the work.Added to the shrill performance of Juliet Stevenson (playing, what I imagine, is her idea of a provincial American housewife -- cartoonish and unidimensional, with accent to boot), the film only flows when Rhys is present on screen.He and Paul should've hogged the camera time, not Paul and his mother.This is a failure of directing, as much as script-writing.Ventura Pons suffers that typical Spanish director's affectation of indulging himself in films, to the detriment of the storytelling.He wants to show off his beloved Barcelona, which he does. He wants to show off the maturing of a gay boy, which he does. He wants to show the absence of love in other characters' lives, which he does in the dog and divorce themes. He even wants to show how insipid Americans are said to be abroad, and he does that too.None of it work. As one example, Barcelona is not a secondary character, as so often happens in Allenesque fashion in some films. _Food of Love_ could've taken place with equal effectiveness in Granada, or indeed, San Francisco in its entirety.At every turn this film is tentative. I want to imagine it's a misreading of cultures, which sometimes works (Visconti and his German mania) but in this case, it truly doesn't.I could barely believe such accomplished actors as Stevenson, and Corduner were giving such stilted, even amateurish performances. Only McEwan salvaged a little dignity in her scenes, which wasn't difficult since she was the only truly honest person in the piece. (I also read that she never believed she was good with accents, but that Food of Love and Pure changed her mind. Sorry to say, but her accent was like a tortured Balkan gypsy somehow landed in Glasgow)I wanted to like this film, as I am passionate about piano. I was willing to be seduced, like a young Bishop.I couldn't help but to think at the end that Pons had been too much of a vampire with his audience, that need for artists to use others to further their talent, even to the point of leaving you dry at the end.Should people require a rating, I give it 2 1/2 stars out of 10.

foxface First off, I have to admit a bias, because I think the world of actor Paul Rhys (Richard in the movie). He is a good actor. That being said, I have to think when he read this script and than read it again, then checked it one more time to see if he could actually believe what he saw, he knew it was bad, and I hope he was well paid to overlook this fact. I mean actors have bills to pay too, and I hope Rhys bought something nice. Yet still, because he is gorgeous (though he wore too much make up in this film, perhaps to indicate his character was gay?)and the only actor who managed to retain some dignity in this film, I endured this misguided, misdirected movie.After all of the main characters were established at the beginning of the movie, we move on to this hotel seduction scene, which just made me laugh. This kid who is 18 and prim and proper (and I like how Richard did check to make sure his jail bait was legal) goes to a guy's hotel room, removes his clothes and gets a "massage" is just hysterically funny. It was creepy too and seemed so incredulous. But that may have been a comment on hotel sex.The mom was too hysterical and even if she didn't know her son was gay, how could she have not known Richard was gay? Didn't she think it strange they went on tours of the city, but left her alone to tour the city. She was needy, weak, insulting to women and too over the top. I was annoyed by the acting. It would have been better if she had a drug problem which would have explained her hysteria. I had no sympathy for her character.The actor that played Paul did not need all of the scenes of him putting on his underwear. It just made me laugh. His bum wasn't that exciting. Neither was his acting. He had a strange voice, that annoyed me also, but then I found out he is really British and so is the mother. Maybe that is the way they think Americans talk and act.We never see Paul practice the piano on a daily basis, which is strange for someone attending Julliard and hoping to be a world class concert pianist. When he gets to New York, I guess to prove he is OK with being gay, he turns into a well dressed whore for older men, who live in expensive penthouses. Again another funny moment when the mother travels to New York to rescue her son from that bad gay man, who must have turned her son out and destroyed his music career. I gotta mention the music teacher. She was real. I had two piano teachers while growing up and they were weird eccentrics and I never understood how they ended up in my town. Oh yeah, they would lie to you about your talent level.What could have been a good coming out, coming of age, or better love story, never made it on screen in this movie. It should have been pitched as a comedy. Watch it, but don't buy the DVD.