The point is.........

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2006)

It's surprising so many people have completely missed the point of this film; which is how a gay man - Jack Twist - seduces a man who may never, otherwise, have known he might be gay. Ennis was already engaged when the film started and did go ahead with his wedding and married life as the hard-working father supporting his wife and two children. Ennis married, as planned, for love; Jack eventually married for money after he was himself seduced and forced into marriage as the result of a pregnancy. It was obvious that Ennis could have valued Jack as a friend without the sexual aspect of their relationship. Jack couldn't - so all of their meetings became primarily sexual. Ennis never tried to solicit another gay in the times between his meetings with Jack - Jack did so repeatedly and it was Jack who couldn't bear to be separated; Ennis never goes to Jack - Jack always comes to Ennis. This is not a gay romance; it is a picture of how a dominant gay behaved and ultimately left his conquest alive but unable to function either as a straight man or as a gay without Jack as his sexual companion. Jack, it is suggested, died for his overt sexuality; Ennis survived because he was not overtly gay - the only person who knew, his wife, loved him enough not to betray him. This was 1963 when to be homosexual was much more dangerous than it is today.