#Chris New | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heartstopperthoughts · 2 years

Text

Queer indie dramas are an entire subgenre, and I am OBSESSED!!! I just wanted to shoutout some of my favorites real quick.

(Warning: These films will rip your heart out and then put it back together again.)

God’s Own Country (2017)

This film takes place in the Yorkshire countryside and is basically Brokeback Mountain with a happy ending. It is nitty-gritty and rough around the edges and kind of hard to watch at parts, but there’s so much tenderness woven throughout. Francis Lee did an outstanding job, especially considering this was his first film. Plus, it has a cutie baby Josh O’Connor in it 🥰

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

This film is about a painter who is hired to do the wedding portrait of a young woman who is engaged to be married to a nobleman. She refuses to sit for the portrait, so it must be done without her knowledge. Marianne poses as her companion so she can study her features for the portrait, but an intense emotional connection forms. It’s a very artsy very French film, but it’s so beautiful and emotional and the intimacy and care between Marianne and Heloise melts my heart 🥺 I also love the friendship they have with the young maid, Sophie.

Weekend (2011)

This film takes place over the course of a weekend as two men have a Friday night hookup but then start talking the following morning and realize that maybe there’s something there. They’re at different places in their coming-out journey, but they spend the entire weekend together in a little bubble, talking and getting to know one another. And then as the weekend comes to a close, they realize that they’re starting to genuinely fall in love. It’s a quiet, introspective film and it brings up some really important conversations around sexuality as well.

Boys/Jongens (2014)

I always call this film Dutch Heartstopper and I watched it on repeat in the days leading up to Heartstopper’s release. The plotting is very similar, although the tone is quite different. Two boys meet when they are on the same relay team at school. One is a year older and more confident in his sexuality and the younger is still struggling to figure himself out but knows that he is irresistibly attracted to his new best friend. This film has butterflies and first kisses and first love, and I will always recommend it to fans of Heartstopper!

#not about Heartstopper today #gods own country #josh o'connor #francis lee #alec secareanu #portrait of a lady on fire #adele haenel #noemie merlant #weekend 2011 #tom cullen #Chris new #boys 2014 #jongens #gijs blom #ko zandvliet

413 notes · View notes

denimbex1986 · 2 months

Text

'Andrew Haigh is a filmmaker who can tell beautiful stories with various degrees of sadness. All of Us Strangers is his most recent and is brimming with poignancy about ghosts of loved ones, unresolved childhood pain, and adult loneliness. After tears or heartache are shed while watching, audiences might notice Haigh’s filmmaking style is both naturalistic and stylish. Long before All of Us Strangers, the director made the romance drama Weekend. This is where Haigh developed what his later projects would frequently depict: a grounded portrayal of everyday life inhabited by characters that anyone might pass by on the street. More importantly, as an openly gay man, Haigh centers his best projects on queer life. Weekend shows how obstacles that gay men face may repeat but proves overcoming them isn’t impossible. Sometimes, it’s the people you meet in a short amount of time that leave an enormous impact.

A One-Night Stand Is Not Enough in ‘Weekend’

The story follows Russell (Tom Cullen), who lives alone in a high-rise apartment. His day may consist of working as a lifeguard, avoiding joining the chats of his crude, straight coworkers, and visiting his married best friend, with whom Russell avoids sharing anything related to his sexuality. Russell is comfortable in this life, even if he’s closed off. Things change when he goes to a club and hooks up with Glen (Chris New). The morning after, they can’t seem to part ways for too long, finding themselves drawn back together.

It begins a meaningful connection and an unexpected awakening for them as they break down the walls they have each put up, all of this happening throughout the weekend before Glen plans to leave the country indefinitely. Andrew Haigh creates a realistic tale of how people can be profoundly changed when they least expect it. Never does Weekend feel tied down to the year it was released. Instead, it feels timely. While it can be sensual, the chemistry between the leads isn’t emphasized when they jump into bed but when they hold conversations, engaging and arguing with one another.

Andrew Haigh Finds Intimacy Away From Sex Scenes

Haigh’s directorial debut, Greek Pete, was made to seem like a documentary on male prostitution, but Weekend, Haigh's breakout film, expands on this film style to help the world and characters feel lived-in without blurring the lines between narrative and documentary. It’s not devastating in the same way as All of Us Strangers. Weekend’s slice-of-life approach is closer to the director’s HBO series, Looking, where life and love don’t always blend seamlessly for the central gay friends living in San Francisco. In Looking Season 1, Patrick (Jonathan Groff) plays hooky from work in Episode 5 to spend the day with Richie (Raúl Castillo), the two testing the waters of being a couple while they wander around the city. They chat, opening up on what was their first sexual experience, how their parents took their coming out, and other details in their lives to get to know each other better. This mumblecore storytelling (a focus on dialogue over plot with naturalistic performances) is found in Weekend, which is how Russell and Glen’s relationship grows.

Their first hookup isn’t shown to the audience. Haigh waits to show them having sex. By holding back, Weekend shows how intimate talking can be, which can be just as electrifying. Glen wants to make an art project that focuses on gay sex, bringing awareness to how it would make a straight audience uncomfortable. Russell agrees to record his memory of their hookup for the project, but as he does, his discomfort and shyness are evident. He sits up, pulling his legs into himself, while Glen lays out on the mattress in his briefs, his hand extended with the recorder on. With the camera close on them, Glen appears more comfortable, as if it’s his bedroom rather than the other way around.

Opposites Attract in ‘Weekend’

When Russell tries to avoid getting too personal in the recording, Glen pries in an abrasive manner -- shy, he is not. But this pushing leads to Russell leaning toward the recorder, and instead of a salacious, candid remark, he replies, “I just thought that we were having a really nice time, and it was lovely. It was more than enough for me.” Glen quiets down and ends the recording, taken aback at Russell’s earnest answer. These two couldn’t be more different, but there’s a spark as these opposites start attracting.

But like Russell, Glen keeps people at a distance. He bursts with self-confidence, and then he can quickly say he doesn’t believe his art will have any value or effect on anyone. Russell looks the other way when homophobia rears its ugly head, choosing to ignore it, but Glen chooses to be confrontational. He yells out Russell’s apartment window when he hears someone saying a slur down below, making Russell nervous the bigots will throw bricks at the glass, despite living far above ground level.

Like his reaction to his art project, Glen’s confidence isn’t as strong as he lets on. When they hang out again, Russell seems to be making an impression, and Glen starts losing his cool demeanor. He leaves Russell, then keeps returning and exiting through the same door as he tries to finish his train of thought. He reveals his upcoming departure at the end of the weekend before eventually asking Russell to join him for a get-together with friends later that night. There’s avulnerability that Glen needs to let out, while Russell has a self-confidence that’s begging to be let loose.

‘All of US Strangers’ and ‘Weekend’ Explore Similar Themes

Like All Us Strangers, the theme of loneliness among queer characters is crucial to Weekend. Russell’s height within his tiny apartment could make the location seem confining. His legs dangle over the edge of a sofa when he’s stretched out on it. His body hardly submerges in his bathtub’s water. But the home is a cozy, safe space where Russell can keep to himself and avoid opening up to the world.

Among the main couple, Russell is the quieter, most reserved of the two, uncomfortable with his sexuality in public. Meanwhile, Glen is blunt about sex and anything else, never failing to dig into his anger about how gay men need to assimilate themselves in a predominantly heteronormative society. “I hate new things,” Russell says to Glen, explaining the second-hand, thrift store items around his kitchen. He treasures the magnets and cups he’s gotten, but this extends to how he chooses to live as well. New, unexplored experiences make him nervous. Glen has been hurt in the past, which is why he has decided to look for new experiences but leave before anything can get too real. They are both lonely, and Andrew Haigh uses a recurring motif to show this.

The Visual Style of ‘All of US Strangers’ and ‘Weekend’

Reflections are important in All of Us Strangers, such as in the opening where the camera is on a wide shot of a city as the sun rises, the heated colors shining off a building, getting brighter, until it glows onto Adam looking out, changing the perspective of the camera by making the framing less aerial, more personal. Due to the supernatural element, windows and mirrors have a different meaning in Strangers than in Weekend. Reflective surfaces show how Russell is detached from the world or how he feels self-conscious when he goes outside. At work as a lifeguard, he stands on patrol, his figure seen in the stagnant water as swimmers chat and splash with friends on the other side. A mirror on the club’s wall closes the distance between Glen and Russell when they first spot each other. And there is Russell’s tendency to stare out his apartment window, similar to Adam in Strangers, observing the city or watching Glen walk away after they part.

‘Weekend’s Russell and Glen Deal with How to Be Openly Gay

Russell and Glen share different views on what it means to not be straight in the current day, gay marriage being among the topics they discuss and argue about, which, off-screen, wouldn’t be legalized in England until a few years later, in 2013. For Russell, marriage is a radical stance against conservative and religious criticism and hate; for Glen, he views casual dating without labels as a more radical stance. In a painful scene in All of Us Strangers, Haigh returns to this question, wondering about the progress that has been made. Does it make queer life better nowadays? The answer isn’t an easy one.

Haigh knows this because while the world is getting better and more tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community, that doesn’t mean happiness is instant. Due to the premise of Adam being able to visit his late parents’ ghosts, he can finally come out to his mom (Claire Foy), but her reaction is ignorance-filled concern. “They say it’s a very lonely kind of life,” she says. He’s lonely, but he tries to clarify, “If I am, it’s not because I’m gay. Not really.” In Weekend, Russell and Glen shut themselves off from relationships, knowing that commitment can make anyone hurt, but meeting each other forces them to realize shutting people out isn’t the answer.

‘Weekend’ Is Sad, But Not Exactly Like ‘All of Us Strangers’

The various ghosts Andrew Scott faces make the closing minutes of Haigh’s recent film depressing. While it’s beautiful, watching what Adam must go through to heal and move on in his life is incredibly tragic from beginning to end. The final minutes of Weekend have a more hopeful outcome, but that gives it a different kind of heartache. Through the various times they meet up, Glen eventually allows himself to be more vulnerable, and Russell gains more confidence in himself. They meet one last time at the train station, where Glen will depart for a journey he hopes will help his career and future. Unlike the kind of resolution the most iconic rom-coms might have at this moment, there is no outburst of love. Whatever their relationship could have been, a final goodbye closes them off from knowing the answer.

Weekend is the breakout film for Andrew Haigh and an acting showcase for Tom Cullen and Chris New. For people who want their romance with unsentimental realism, this queer film is for them. Haigh isn’t afraid of downbeat endings, but they usually feel like the right choice for how the stories he made should end. Weekend takes the time to feel authentic in creating the romance between Russell and Glen without choosing to give them an easy happily ever after, even if some viewers want it. The train leaves, but Russell and Glen won’t be forgetting each other anytime soon.'

#Tom Cullen #Chris New #Weekend #All of Us Strangers #Andrew Haigh #Claire Foy #LGBTQ+#HBO #Looking #Greek Pete #Jonathan Groff #Raul Castillo #Andrew Scott #Paul Mescal

1 note · View note