The Unexpected Benefits of Sinking This story develops the plot of the short film “Sinking”, released a few years earlier, shot by the same director. And with the same performer of the main role - although he has grown up already for the role of a high school student. The main question of the film is what happens when you get for a long time not what you want. Instead of parental attention and participation, the reproaches that you will never become the person who was the dead older brother. Instead of the warmth of the first meeting with an experienced partner - casual fleeting sex in the "extreme". Instead of reciprocating deep feelings from a friend, resentment and anger from his heterosexual choice. Most of the screen time, the hero unsuccessfully tries to escape from the endless “blows of youth”. For a while, he finds peace, understanding and a kind of care from his brother’s ex-girlfriend. Feeling obliged, the guy makes clumsy attempts to establish a water supply in her house - it looks cute, obviously, before us is not a "completely lost" person, he only does not know how to defend himself from those very blows of fate. However, he will eventually run away from his caring partner. It seems that life really tests him for strength - dubious acquaintances, sex video chats, injections into a vein. And finally, the main blow - almost knockout - sinking to the bottom, voluntarily "sinking" yourself as the only way to stop the endless run from circumstances and from yourself.
The favorable outcome of the story is evidence that the authors of the film cherish their hero and his future. The knockout failed. As it always happens in life, in desperate, at first glance, situations there is one who at the last minute extends a helping hand - literally carries on himself. And suddenly it turns out that the only friend saves not only now - he was always there. And that the parents’ “unkindness” behavior can be explained by the fears of emptiness that arose after the brother’s departure – but the love for the younger son, however, remains unchanged. And suddenly there is a feeling that more than ever “should be here and now”, near his family. And finally, a meeting in the hospital with that fleeting acquaintance from the park is a hint of a future closer acquaintance, a possible beginning of a new story. Perhaps sometimes it is really necessary to approach and physically feel the shaky boundary between life and death in order to understand the futility of constant “escape” from others. In general, this is a good teenage drama about the awareness of one’s own sexuality and about the search for oneself in the outside world – a dynamically developing plot with an optimistic ending. It may seem that a little too far with the degree of frankness of some scenes – however, this is already taste, which, for sure, will not affect the overall perception of the picture. Some would find such scenes appropriate.
10 out of 10