Chris Knipp
10-13-2008, 12:05 AM
Luke Eberl: Choose Connor (2007)
Politics and melodrama
The NYTimes review begins "Choose Connor draws you in by creeping you out," and the creepiness gibes poorly with the more detailed and interesting (if a bit flat) treatment of nuts-and-bolts details of political campaigning that disillusion an ambitious 15-year-old idealist, Owen Norris (Alex Linz, a child actor like writer-director Eberl), who's chosen by senatorial candidate Lawrence Connor (Steven Weber) to be his "youth representative" and pump up his failing campaign, and then learns that he's being used and Larry isn't a "good man." Somewhere here there's a valid account of the pains of dealing with political realities as a young ambitious kid, but the movie goes astray with the creeping-you-out parts.
When Larry's manager coaches Owen on how to respond to journalists' questions it's right on and relevant: it's a lesson in how politicians must compromise and talk in sound-bites and how such compromises corrupt the system. But all these specifics and ironies about politics are torpedoed when it's telegraphed, quite early on, that Larry (who has no wife) is a pedophile, though it's still too-bad-to-be-true to learn as a climax that he's involved in an abusive pedophile ring right in the family mansion.
Caleb (Escher Holloway) is Larry's adopted nephew who befriends Owen and flirts with him. These scenes are a relief because they're not only not creepy but are allowed to play out as improvisations at times, while the political scenes are strictly, stiffly scripted. Owen's stiffness is because he's idealistic and naive and lacks real people skills. Larry's is because he's a fake, fraud, and creep. Caleb is involved in the evil doings, though as family he's protected from the worst abuses, suffering only psychologically. You understand why he smokes dope a lot. One of the ultimate creepy moments is when Larry tells Owen about learning as a schoolboy to exploit the "system" by threatening the principal. If only this was what caused the crisis, rather than Owen's discovery of the sex crimes.
In the end Owen has lost an incriminating tape he's been sent--at the prompting of both Caleb and another congressman, he doesn't pursue this, though he's sorely tempted. Larry wins the election and becomes senator and Owen quits and runs off in the night.
The ways the film is flat--low-keyed music, mostly restrained camera movement--may save it from greater luridness or conventionality but also tend to make it seem amateurish, or like a high school instructional film. Eberl was only 21 when he wrote and directed. There are many good details in the script, though maybe not enough this time to make it work with the bad parts cut out; still it is too long at over two hours. There are three stories here--the political disillusionment, the sex ring, and the relationship with the damaged but charismatic and interesting Caleb, and they don't belong in the same movie.
Released in October 2008 and shown in New York City at Cinema Village.
Politics and melodrama
The NYTimes review begins "Choose Connor draws you in by creeping you out," and the creepiness gibes poorly with the more detailed and interesting (if a bit flat) treatment of nuts-and-bolts details of political campaigning that disillusion an ambitious 15-year-old idealist, Owen Norris (Alex Linz, a child actor like writer-director Eberl), who's chosen by senatorial candidate Lawrence Connor (Steven Weber) to be his "youth representative" and pump up his failing campaign, and then learns that he's being used and Larry isn't a "good man." Somewhere here there's a valid account of the pains of dealing with political realities as a young ambitious kid, but the movie goes astray with the creeping-you-out parts.
When Larry's manager coaches Owen on how to respond to journalists' questions it's right on and relevant: it's a lesson in how politicians must compromise and talk in sound-bites and how such compromises corrupt the system. But all these specifics and ironies about politics are torpedoed when it's telegraphed, quite early on, that Larry (who has no wife) is a pedophile, though it's still too-bad-to-be-true to learn as a climax that he's involved in an abusive pedophile ring right in the family mansion.
Caleb (Escher Holloway) is Larry's adopted nephew who befriends Owen and flirts with him. These scenes are a relief because they're not only not creepy but are allowed to play out as improvisations at times, while the political scenes are strictly, stiffly scripted. Owen's stiffness is because he's idealistic and naive and lacks real people skills. Larry's is because he's a fake, fraud, and creep. Caleb is involved in the evil doings, though as family he's protected from the worst abuses, suffering only psychologically. You understand why he smokes dope a lot. One of the ultimate creepy moments is when Larry tells Owen about learning as a schoolboy to exploit the "system" by threatening the principal. If only this was what caused the crisis, rather than Owen's discovery of the sex crimes.
In the end Owen has lost an incriminating tape he's been sent--at the prompting of both Caleb and another congressman, he doesn't pursue this, though he's sorely tempted. Larry wins the election and becomes senator and Owen quits and runs off in the night.
The ways the film is flat--low-keyed music, mostly restrained camera movement--may save it from greater luridness or conventionality but also tend to make it seem amateurish, or like a high school instructional film. Eberl was only 21 when he wrote and directed. There are many good details in the script, though maybe not enough this time to make it work with the bad parts cut out; still it is too long at over two hours. There are three stories here--the political disillusionment, the sex ring, and the relationship with the damaged but charismatic and interesting Caleb, and they don't belong in the same movie.
Released in October 2008 and shown in New York City at Cinema Village.