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Alive & Kicking

1996, Movie, R, 100 mins

Alive & Kicking: Review

ALIVE & KICKING | INDIAN SUMMER
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A provocative pas de deux that stumbles long before the curtain falls. Tonio (Jason Flemyng), a handsome young dancer, keeps a steadily growing urn collection: He's already lost his lover, a host of friends and, shortly into the film, his mentor (Anthony Higgins) to AIDS. Tonio is himself HIV-positive, a fact which he refuses to let dampen his "go for it, regret nothing" attitude toward life. One night at a club, he meets Jack (Antony Sher), an overweight, middle-aged therapist who works with people living with AIDS. Jack's immediately smitten, but it takes Tonio a little longer to see around what he perceives as Jack's physical drawbacks. It's an interesting premise that has a lot to say about the undue importance placed on youth and the body in gay culture, and screenwriter Martin Sherman, who adapted the script from his own play, moves well beyond the simple "opposites attract" motivation underlying this relationship. The fact that HIV status may have something to do with why someone like Tonio would wind up with someone like Jack is an uncomfortable reality that isn't lost on Sherman. But between the setup and the equally unusual climactic dance sequence, there's an awful lot of narrative thumb-twiddling. Entire scenes are simply gratuitous filler, while many crucial developments go unexplained: Jack suddenly faces on-the-job burnout, begins drinking too much and the romance starts to fall apart. It's not really clear why any of this happens, except that the actors need something to do until the film is over. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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