Floating uneasily between ghost story and gay tragedy, “Dream Boy” marvels as young love flowers on a dunghill of homophobia, incest and religious repression. The material may be florid, but its execution is sensitive as Nathan (Stephan Bender), the new kid on the school bus, locks eyes with Roy (Max Roeg), the silky-haired driver and farm boy next door. Algebra homework leads to a snuggle in the cemetery, and it’s not long before the natives are compelled to intervene.
Set amid the lush farmlands of Louisiana — which the cinematographer, Sarah Levy, paints with a faintly menacing sheen — “Dream Boy” is pretty to look at but dismayingly obvious, as in the shot of a wall-mounted crucifix gazing sorrowfully down on an incestuous struggle. Adapting Jim Grimsley’s novel, James Bolton directs his small cast (including Thomas Jay Ryan and Diana Scarwid as Nathan’s parents) through wooden dialogue and the didactic proddings of Richard Buckner’s guitar score. But his early flirtation scenes are extremely effective, teasing out the tremors of infatuation with considerable help from Mr. Roeg, who, as the son of Nicolas Roeg and Theresa Russell, has inherited his mother’s sly, predatory sensuality.
Whether wedged, panting, on a cramped bus seat or groping furtively in a tiny pup tent, the two leads effortlessly capture the recklessness of first love and especially its inarticulateness, when sometimes a desperate gasp of “touch me” is the best we can manage. JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
“Dream Boy” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Blood, bigotry and bad touching.
Opens on Friday in Manhattan
Directed by James Bolton
1 hour 30 minutes
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