Customer Reviews

Seminarian [Import]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Title is misleading;a student of theology is not necessarily an actual seminarian. Acting is poor. Plot line absolutely boring. Put your money elsewhere.

The synopsis is that a closeted Seminarian, who is writing his thesis, finally meets a guy he can connect to and then decides to come out. Now you might think there are opportunities to take this story to new and unchartered waters, and that there would be an opportunity to explore some of the ethical questions that surround The Bible and homosexuality; and you would be right. The big question that I was left struggling with was why the makers decided not to bother.

It stars Mark Cirillo as the student, he is in his thirties so a better casting might have made this more believable as the struggling thesis writer, and we are never told he is a mature student, but then again I don't think he was meant to be. He likes going on line for self gratification and pretending to be straight with nearly all his friends.

Well all of that is nothing new and quite understandable. His thesis is about reconciling the love that Jesus has for all mankind with the love we feel for each other and the suffering it causes, and from a theological perspective this part of the film is fairly well fleshed out. He meets Bradley on line and they hook up, it turns out he is an emotional wreck and a bit of a loser. We then have lots of interplay with his friends, all of who have never graduated from am dram school. There is an awful lot of making phone calls that do not get answered. A lot of sitting around reading books, having strained and obviously scripted conversations and minimal music.

There are some full frontal shots but not a lot more for the more raunchy minded viewer of the gay genre. It is not very sexy, the acting is almost universally below par and it is crying out for a good edit because at 101 minutes I was itching for the fast forward. All in all this is a missed opportunity as the backward and homophobic attitudes that are portrayed are never adequately dealt with. If they had have been then this may have been a worthwhile watch, as it is it really remains barely ok hence my rating.