Kyra Sedgwick stars in Loverboy as Emily Stoll, a convincing tale of an emotionally frail woman obsessed with the creation and subsequent existence of her son. Kevin Bacon directed this interesting movie and also stars as the child Emily's father in well-played flashbacks. Dominic Scott Kay stars as the title character, Loverboy or Paul, offering a dynamic performance as Emily's 6 year old bright-eyed son. I found the story in this DVD to be original, and thought provoking. Bacon's direction is well paced, allowing the viewer a metered glimpse into Emily's difficult childhood and resulting odd behavior. The movie is also entertaining as it offers cameo appearances by Hollywood favorites such as: Blair Brown, Sandra Bullock, Marisa Tomei, Campbell Scott and Matt Dillon. The unique premise of the movie is wonderful and offers endless contemplation on the question: Is it possible to raise a normal child, showered with love and yet bound within a framework of endless play and fantasy? The concept sounds marvelous and still this movie wisely portrays the inevitable results. I recommend this DVD to anyone seeking entertaining fare as well as alternative parenting viewpoints.Read full review
I watched this movie very carefully and while I can see it would not be enjoyable to many people, THERE IS NO HINT OF INCEST! The main reason I wrote this review was to counterpoint the review that implies there are hints of sexual incest. The reviewer who said that must have some issues! Yes, the relationship the mother had was twisted and obsessive (that was the point of the film), but based on the fact that the mother character went so far as to kill herself and try to kill her son, I seriously doubt that she would have restrained herself from at least getting the sexual relationship rolling with some inappropriate contact. I didn't even see any indication that the mother slept in the same bed with the boy, or bathed with him or anything else like that. While I realize that if there was to be incest in the story, they would have been extremely delicate about it, there is just no sign of it! The only thing that I think anyone can pull out of this assumption is that she kisses him on the lips all the time. NOT ENOUGH by far to imply incest as far as I am concerned. Just in case you think I am not observant, or trying to deny something that is right in front of me, just check out the review of the BOOK that this movie is based on at amazon.com. There is no mention of incest anywhere. Then you can check out IMDB reviews and customer comments. NO INCEST. It really is a shame because the rest of the review is spot on, VERY well written and very insightful. Just in case you read this and still aren't sure, let me ask you a question. Did you not notice that even though there were sexual scenes with the mother in the movie, that they ALL were obviously a vehicle for the mother to get pregnant? I do not even think the mother character had any sexual desires. She knew how to be seductive (even with Matt Dillon), but she ONLY acted this way to perpetuate her relationship with her son, which was NOT sexual........ The Bacon's did a great job with this strange and intriguing flick, but I feel (and I have no way of knowing this) that they would be insulted or disgusted by your reading incest into this story.Read full review
I happened to be channel surfing, and saw kyra and kevin, was interested right away. beside the all very talented cast, i knew i had to watch it. as i watched it i figured out REALIZED right away that this movie had NOTHING TO WITH ANY SEXUAL INCEST was going on at all. she found her obsession with a child. she grew up seeing the PASSION with her parents. her parents were so obsessed with each other had a dysfuntional childhood. so she found mrs. harker as a mother/friend in her which is why thru her life after the harkers moved out, she abandoned. and by the way she always saw how her parents acted right in front of her, while she was brushing her teeth, they were in the tub fooling around and always hitting on each other, i think she looked at sex as, and passion which was always kept her out of their lives. so when she hung out with mrs. harker she felt normal, and someone who she could go to when needed and want to. so abandoned again. she looked up to her, that the song she sang david bowies "life on mars?" that was a tribute to mrs. harker, not what her parents thought n yelled about in the car, i doubt very much if she what the song really meant. the main line that kevin bacon tells her, (i have so much passion for that woman, u need to have a passion in your life" so between the what she was told and saw everyday, then of course she walks in on them lying in bed together dead, that her mom rather have died with her father rather than being alive and start taking care of her. i feel her parents turned her off of a lot of things in life, sex, lonliness. the main thing she was taught, was "you need a passion in life, but showed more odsession than love and normal life. out of all the men she seduced to get pregnant and have a baby that would her passion in life. but as paul turned 6, he started noticing other kids are doing things the kids were doing, like playing in the park, wanting to go to school by bus, she started to feel abandoned again as he grew more, he growing away from her, she never felt alone as long as they did things together and that was never her plan in their life. then she felt and she started seing mrs. hakin, like shw was showing her the way, leading them on a path, that they should never part is what she got out of it. so the only way loverboy and ms. darling would be together forever and never lose him was for the both of them to die together. paul survided since she took sleeping pills and paul did not. there was NO incest in her mind what so ever. paul was her passion and odsession. she a great mother, until she started to felling of losing him to other, and that he wanted to know his dad, wanting to go to school and be like that other kids. i cried at the end, since i LOVED my parents so much more than anyone, as i grew older and found out my parents had bone cancer, i would have rather be me dying and wanted them to live out their lives since i new id never get over theirs, and i cant cope anymore without them they were my BEST FRIENDS AND LOVING PARENTS. they also were caring, and spoiled me to death, and ill always appreciated it till this day, i still do. so in a way i caan feel somewhat the same for her, and paul since now he has to grow up with out his mother. but doing what she did, she never gave them both the chance to be together forever alive, not dead.Read full review
Seems like high time to out America's dirtiest secret: the number of hetero-headed households of adults who use their own children to satisfy their forbidden, hidden needs. I don't read into this movie the incest that others writing here have. instead, what I take away from this film is a great lesson. This is how one American family, the Bacon-Sedgwick family, used performance art to teach their kids about how damaging crossing parental boundaries can be. Certainly, hetero-families never want to admit how frequently their children are used by those who are supposed be in role as parents. The statistics of frequency are astronomical in the states. But let's not put that issue on the political agenda. Heaven forbid that moral majority engaged in immoral conduct EVER point three fingers at themselves! Thanks to the Bacon-Sedgwick, child-centered family, for using its influence to do so.Read full review
Kevin Bacon directs his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, in the lead role in a most outlandish tale about a mother's obsessive-compulsive relationship with her only child. The story was adapted into a screenplay by Hannah Shakespeare from Victoria Redel's novel. The film deals with a mother's emotional incest with her young son. How can it be anything but disturbing? The way Bacon directed the film was to flash back & forth from Emily's (Sosie Bacon) troubled childhood to her adulthood desire to be a single, child-possessive parent. When Emily (Sosie Bacon) was a girl, both of her parents were so inseparably in love that their only child wound up severely neglected. After Emily's father became ill, her parents committed suicide together leaving her orphaned. Thus, the intoxicating strategy of flashing back & forth works to suggest the cause of Emily's bizarre mothering style stemmed from the effects of her own parents' total obsession with each other & emotional negligence & suicidal abandonment of their daughter. In this way, "Loverboy" is a psycho-drama as it zooms inside a family's intergenerational dynamics. In order to conceive a child, Emily becomes deliberately sexually compulsive with so many men no one will ever know who is the father. Her wild technique of conception works until she miscarries. A stranger named Paul (Campbell Scott) ultimately impregnates Emily & she names her son after him (but calls him "Loverboy"). Raising "Loverboy" to be with her forever is her total reason for living. He's not socialized properly because Emily (Sedgwick) wants him jealously all to herself. Throughout the show Emily & Paul encounter people who try to intervene in their lives. A neighbor, Mrs. Harker (Sandra Bullock), who becomes younger Emily's (Sosie Bacon) ideal of a mother, befriends the little girl for a while. Harker (Bullock) is gorgeous & seductive in high heels & a satin robe at the school bus stop, for example. Other people who try to intervene in Emily's past & in 6yo Paul's present life appear briefly in cameo roles: Kevin Bacon, Blair Brown, Matt Dillon, Oliver Platt & Marisa Tomei. Even some of Sedgwick & Bacon's own children are part of the cast (Sosie Bacon plays Emily at 10yo; Travis Bacon plays Lenny; Kevin Bacon's brother Michael Bacon composed the original music; Robert Sedgwick, Kyra's younger brother, plays Emily's 3rd grade teacher). "Loverboy" is not only a vehicle for Kevin Bacon to feature his wife as a shinning star, but he makes much of the cast a family affair! Kyra Sedgwick delivers, as expected, a stellar performance. She has to put on many faces of emotion which seems so natural for her to do. Partly nude, she is ravishing. Given that the film depicts a mother coming right to the brink of actually becoming physically incestuous with her 6yo son, as well as the blatant sexual encounters during her impregnation scheme & Sedgwick's (bless-ed) nudity (!), the R rating is not by any means a mistake. I watched "Loverboy," even though the subject matter of maternal emotional & hints of physical sexual incest is instantly repulsive. But the dramatic performances were too entrancing from which to turn away. I couldn't bring myself to rate it excellent because there wasn't enough of a balance in the film to relieve me of feeling repulsed. Sedgwick's multi-faceted character is one she ever so capably embodies.Read full review
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