Reviewed by James Withers
(9/1/99)

Director: Richard Kwientniowski

Screenplay: Richard Kwientniowski (based on a novel by Gilbert Adair)

Cast: John Hurt (Giles De'Ath) Jason Priestly (Ronnie Bostock) Fiona Loewi (Audry)

Love and Death on Long Island makes sense only if you have simultaneously experienced love, obsession, and loss. In short, it is a film for us lucky few (losers?) who constantly bemoan our love lives.

Giles De'Ath (John Hurt) is a British writer who has shut out the 20th century. His life has been committed to his art, and even the death of his wife (there is a glimpse of her photograph when the film opens) does not distract him from his work. One day, after he locks himself out of his home, Giles goes to the movies. Instead of seeing a movie adaptation of an E.M. Forester novel, he is subjected to a film called Hot Pants College II. Miffed, Giles gets up to leave; however, Ronnie Bostock's (Jason Priestly) face comes on the screen. With one glance, Giles is enraptured with Ronnie. Ronnie invades Giles' dreams to such an extent that Giles begins a journey of late 20th century popular culture. Giles notices worlds he has heretofore ignored: the worlds of television, videos, pizza, and teen magazines. He confesses as much when he explains to his agent what his next book will be about (the discovery of beauty where no one ever thought of looking for it). Giles' desire for Ronnie, a desire the film accepts without question, is so potent that he travels to Ronnie's home in Long Island.

Giles is no dirty old man (anything against dirty old men) who is looking for some young boy meat to deflower. There is something transcendent in his love for Ronnie. There are the obvious reasons why he should not love the not-so-bright teen idol, but there is the communion that Giles and Ronnie made in the movie house that Giles cannot forget. A communion that combines Giles' intellect with Ronnie's sentiment whenever Giles and Ronnie talk, they talk about art. Giles gives Ronnie the intellectual background for ideas that Ronnie knows in his heart, but cannot articulate. Yet De'Ath is no snob. He does not talk down to his beloved, nor does he mock him for the scripts he reads. Instead he shows him how the work he does is connected to larger, greater, artistic visions. Giles reminds Ronnie of the consequence of art and talent.

This reminder, however, is not good enough; or at least not good enough for the lover to end up with the beloved. Ronnie's girlfriend, Audry, appreciates the help Giles offers Ronnie. She, like Giles, believes in Ronnie's talents as an actor. Yet when she recognizes Giles' love, she also recognizes it is just like hers, and she quietly moves to solidify her relationship. Giles cannot counteract Audry's move, so he uses the tactic that all loveless lovers anxiously use: the confession. If all loveless lovers use the confession, they also know this: the confession never works. Like all good love stories, Giles and Ronnie do not end up together but they do end up giving each other gifts neither had before. It is those gifts, and this film, that reminds us how we loveless lovers, lucky few, are luckier than we thought.