The Nature of Nicholas (2002)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The psychological premise of the movie is familiar: two boys on the edge of puberty face a crisis in their friendship when Nicholas, the smaller and shyer boy, gives in to an erotic impulse and plants a peck of a kiss on his pal, Bobby, and Bobby recoils. Then the movie dissolves into murky surrealism. We're not sure whether the friendship is continuing -- real Bobby has been replaced by zombie Bobby, whom Nicholas hides in his bedroom and in a barn that serves as Nicholas' etymology lab. Bobby the silent zombie accepts Nicholas' gestures of care-giving, which include a bath, secretive feeding (who knew zombies need food?) and a shoulder massage. But there is no further overt affection shown except one kiss on Bobby's neck. Another introductory scene shows Bobby dragging a reluctant Nicholas to a school girl's party. The two take part in a game of spin the bottle. When it's Nicholas' turn to take a girl into a closet for a make-out scene, nothing happens except a shadowy man in long underwear pops up behind the clothes rack, apparently as a voyeur. Later on, we learn that the apparition is Nicholas' dead father, who makes a few other appearances for no clear reason.Secondary characters and choppy dialog add little to the story. We watch Nicholas' mother trying to be supportive of her son and getting little but sullenness in return. The mother's suitor gets a similar brushoff. Near the end, real Bobby hauls zombie Bobby away in a wagon while Nicholas watches. It's hard to know what to make of this scene -- they seem to be parting as friends, yet the mood suggests Nicholas has been abandoned. By this point, Nicholas has been transformed into a zombie himself, and is shown following his father's shade into an abandoned farmhouse. It is anyone's guess whether the real Nicholas is still out there somewhere or has surrendered to schizophrenic fantasy. I watched this film in a 7-part series on YouTube and I did plod through all seven segments. At the end, I wished I had tuned out after Part 3.

I hate pretentious movies that try so hard to be art that they forget to be entertaining. This movie falls into that category. I'm not really a fan of abstract surrealism at the best of times, but bleak self-loathing surrealism can just go take a jump in the lake! The trouble with symbolism is that if it needs a guide book to tell you what's going on (especially symbolism in movies where the viewer doesn't have the time to dissect every nuance), I think it fails. It just becomes a series of directorial in-jokes. I don't mind challenging film. I can stomach dark movies. But this simply failed to reward the effort.Furthermore, none of the non-surreal relationships (Nicholas and Bobby, Nicholas and his mother, mother and boyfriend) were remotely credible, so my mind was constantly tussling with the disbelief about their relationships, long before the actual surreal stuff started happening.This movie had the potential to be really worthwhile, with some mature performances from the young leads forging the way, but instead it disappeared right up its own self-indulgent rectum.Read traymasters' review above, then save yourself the time of actually watching the movie. His review is far more meaningful and lucid than the actual movie!

Yes, yes we "get" it Jeff, but let's get a little real here, shall we? When people talk of the pathetic state of English Canadian cinema, this is the film they are referring to. And the director's faux naive "Gee, I really don't know what to say about my own film," pose, is, let's face it, just that. He has thousands of words to explain why he can't or won't explain the creative decisions he has made so, please spare us the "artiste" attitude. You, sir, are no artist. You have a short film idea blown up into a bombastic and obvious turgid wallow in your own psycho sexual confusion - except it doesn't even feel authentic. Take a simple film of sexual ambiguity like, Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho." A simple tale, borrowed from Shakespeare, about street kids testing, experimenting - and each beat, each frame is charged with all the delicious meaningful ambiguity that escapes this film. What do we get instead? Arbitrariness. Capriciousness. Confusion. Oh, but it's all super clear to the director? Good for him! We all thought that the age of the navel-gazing, nebulous "Canadian" bore- fest films were over, but sadly, the age lives on in Winnepeg. And I put the über-precious, constructivist Guy Maddin in the same bucket - what Nancy-boy, and he's not even gay! This film has such a tiny truth to reveal, such a small-minded, blinkered, pedestrian notion of adolescent sexual confusion, but somehow this misguided auteur and obvious member N.A.M.B.L.A., convinced a whole series of funders to back this project. What happened, Maddin come up dry on that funding go-round? I try to imagine some visitor to Canada checking into his motel room and turning on MPix and stumbling over this over-worked, tepid dross and wondering, "This must be what pass for independent cinema in this country. Poor souls!" And because Astral put money into it, they feel obliged to play it over and over... death by a thousand insipid cuts of mindless nonsense. And you, you reviewers, gushing breathlessly over this misfire - get out much, do you? Out there on the wind-swept prairies? Here's a clue - a shot of a wheat field, is a shot of a wheat field. Not a portal to the ineffable. and here's a clue for Jeff - when next you decide to write a script, and get puzzled looks from those who read it, take it to heart. Next time, why don't you write something outside yourself, just for once - why? I'm gonna give you the gift of truth. If you were Buñuel, if you were Goddard (in his prime) or Eisenstein, or J.M.E.C. Cocteau, or Rimbaud, or even Patty Smith, if you had an interesting life, an original thought or were just a really fun guy, then maybe what comes out of your head, that is so clear to you, but which you just can't explain, might be worth looking at. But, you're not. Not even close. You don't have a point of view worth looking at or listening to. It is base, dull, unimaginative and worse, banal. You bore with your reluctance to really grapple with what's in front of you. You mince around when you should be tearing it up. You lack spine and guts and conviction. You are stubborn but, that's a poor substitute for having something important to say. Do all of Canada, and Winnipeg a big favour and stop making films.

and yet very watchable.I don't pretend to know what this film is about, I just know that it was very satisfying to watch. Some movies, a very few, leave you with that feeling, the one that says, yeah, that's what a movie should be; that's how you feel when you have watched cinema art.I know I should discuss the freudian symbolism and explain how it all fits into Freud's stages of sexual maturation, but I just can't bring myself to reduce this film to such cant.It is a mythic story, best experienced in a childlike (vs.childish)state.