The Boy With the Sun in His Eyes
by Todd Verow
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: and Josh Ubaldi, Mahogany Reynolds, Tim SwainDirector: Todd Verow
Brand: Water Bearer Films
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-12-01
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: WATER BEARER FILMS
Movie Reviews of The Boy With the Sun in His Eyes
Movie Review: THE BOY WITH THE SUN IN HIS EYES review by Gary Kramer
Summary: 5 Stars
The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes By Gary Kramer
Published: December 3, 2009
Tim Swain (right/back) in bed with a lover
Enfant terrible Todd Verow moves in a radical new direction with his latest diversion, The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes, now available on DVD. This intense and erotic film is an entertaining globe-hopping thriller. Yet it still shares the intense self-discovery that marks the best of the filmmaker's previous work.
John (Tim Swain, from Verow's Between Something and Nothing) meets Solange (Mahogany Reynolds) at the funeral of their mutual friend Kevin (Josh Ubaldi), who committed suicide. While they talk about how well they know someone (read: how little John knows himself), Solange hires John as a personal assistant for a European TV program she's hoping to host. Wanting both direction and love in his life, John follows this possibly untrustworthy woman to Paris, Milan and Berlin where he has a series of affairs with handsome but possibly untrustworthy guys.
It would spoil the plot to reveal how things get hinky, but suffice it to say, they do. Verow shoots the low-budget The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes on DV, which gives this striking film its intimacy. There are many close-ups of the characters--especially during the numerous sex scenes.
Verow imbues the film with a distinctive atmosphere by deliberately not making a European travelogue. Although there are a few street scenes, most of the action takes place in the nightclubs, restaurants, and bedrooms where John and Solange spend most of their time. This spare style suits the film. Unlike his prior "mood" pieces, this plot-driven drama nicely builds its narrative tension.
Verow may establish a different tone here, but he continues to explore issues of identity, love, and betrayal, and these themes resonate. The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes may not be as provocative as Verow's previous work, but perhaps that what makes it so exciting. He challenges viewers to change--just like his characters.
On a break from his work on the other side of the film industry--he manages an NYC movie theater--Verow met with The San Francisco Bay Times to discuss the change of pace of working on a film that didn't have the autobiographical qualities of his intensely personal works, Anonymous, Vacationland, and Between Something and Nothing.
"I wanted to take a break from my own stuff. This film is based on a novel by James Derek Dwyer and real things that happened to him. It's not autobiographical, but I was very familiar [with the] story."
Verow's detached observer perspective helped inform this film, his first literary adaptation since Frisk back in 1995. He describes John as, "a spectator in his own life. He is not really involved in all this crazy stuff that is happening around him." This quality appealed to Verow because, he says, "So many times in life these days, people don't get involved. We watch things, but we don't get absorbed in them."
Some of the more engaging elements in the film are the copious sex scenes. Yet these discreetly passionate couplings are also a departure for the filmmaker who has a reputation for being uninhibited on screen.
The filmmaker demurs. "It was a conscious decision. I had done so much explicit sex in other movies, for this one the challenge was to make the sex as erotic and sensual and sexy as possible without showing anything. What I wanted to capture in the sex scenes was the intensity of a one night stand and how it's physical, but at the same time fleeting."
The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes succeeds in this respect and in other ways, as well. Verow eschews the traditional genre film, mixing elements of comedy, romance, action-thriller and drama in one satisfying package.
Yet despite the differences from his other work, the filmmaker sees The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes as another of his "coming of age" films. He opines, "A lot of people don't come of age until much later in life. John's doing everything he's supposed to do, but he [decides] to try to do stuff like his [suicidal] friend. I would hope that people at some point would say, "Why am I here? What's going on? What's the purpose of my life, and if there is no purpose, what am I going to do?'
Summary of The Boy With the Sun in His Eyes
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