Clapham Junction

Plot synopsis:
From a civil partnership ceremony to a heated dinner party, five stories are woven into London from school and work, to bars and clubs, during one hot summer’s night. The film opens with the audio of a weather report highlighting a current heatwave (something referred to intermittently in later dialogue), while the main characters and storylines are briefly introduced; Danny (Jared Thomas) is shown walking down a deserted tunnel in school uniform, Robin (Rupert Graves) is heading into the Channel 4 studios, 14-year-old Theo (Luke Treadaway) takes books from his locker at school and Terry (Paul Nicholls) is at work, driving while listening to headphones. We then see Danny practising on the fiddle, before the first scene opens with Robin trying to sell a script he's just finished. The script is rejected because "the whole gay thing...has been done". This sets a general narrative for the whole film, questioning the idea that legal equality and general media acceptance makes being gay no longer an issue.
This is interspersed with scenes from Will (Richard Lintern) and Gavin's (Stuart Bunce) civil partnership, as the two tie the knot and Alfie prepares to act as the waiter for the event. We are briefly introduced to Danny's mother, Dolly (Claire Perkins), who praises her son's prowess to her boss, and see Theo heading to the library, before returning to Terry who returns home to his nan. He is depicted as a doting grandson, but there are clear tensions between him and his mother, an apparent alcoholic. Meanwhile, Danny is shown being subjected to homosexual taunts on his way home, and Theo is cruising 29-year-old Tim in the library, picking up Tim's pen which he has left behind.
Back at the civil partnership, Will clearly takes a shine to the young waiter, Alfie (David Leon). It is soon clear that he has no intention of remaining faithful to Gavin and he makes a move on Alfie as they snort cocaine in the pantry. Will tries to have sex with him, but Alfie refuses, believing Will should remain faithful to Gavin. We then see Terry preparing to go out, and both he and Alfie end up at a gay night club in Vauxhall. They make eyes at each other and eventually start a conversation, only for this to be interrupted when a friend of Alfie's turns up and Terry disappears home with someone else.
Robin goes cruising in the public toilets where he meets Julian (James Wilby). They both exchange knowing glances and are intending to enter one of the cubicles together, when they are interrupted. Robin leaves. He waits outside briefly, but doesn't see Julian come out. He heads to a dinner party being held by Roger (Tom Beard) and Belinda (Rachel Blake), where Roger makes it clear that he's unhappy in his marriage and wants to be able to "play the field again".
Alfie leaves the night club alone, and finds Will's ring in his pocket along with a note containing his phone number. Terry is at the home of the guy he met at the club (Johnny Harris). It is not a usual hook-up; instead of getting naked, they are awkwardly talking in the living room. The guy mentions that his mother has recently died, and Terry claims his mother is also dead, having been run over by a mail van. The guy then makes a pass at Terry who jumps away, making an excuse about wanting the music turned up. As the guy goes to turn the music up, Terry suddenly and brutally smashes him over the head with an ashtray. As the guy begs for mercy, Terry repeatedly kicks him, forces cigarette butts in his mouth, verbally abuses him, and urinates on him.
Theo's parents arrive at the dinner party and he is left home alone. He goes to his bedroom window, where he can see across into Tim's flat. Seeing Tim appear shirtless by the window in just his boxers, Theo proceeds to kneel beside the window, light a cigarette, drop his shorts and masturbate while looking at Tim.
Back in the public toilets, Julian is still there, spying through a glory hole in one of the cubicles. He attracts a guy in the neighbouring cubicle, who he proceeds to suck off. The other guy abruptly enters Julian's cubicle and roughly fucks him. Alfie enters the toilets and hears the sound of the two men having sex as he tries to urinate. The guy leaves and Alfie briefly sees Julian with his trousers down inside the cubicle, before he shuts the door. Alfie is then approached by two guys, who chase him out of the toilets and onto Clapham Common. Julian arrives at the dinner party, where Robin recognises him as the guy he saw in the toilets.
Meanwhile, Theo heads over to Tim's flat to return his pen. He tries desperately to enter against Tim's wishes, getting his foot hurt in the process as he tries to hold the door open. Eventually, as others are heard entering the flats, Tim suddenly pulls Theo inside. Once inside, Theo continually makes up reasons to stay, wanting to chat about history and asking for glasses of water. Theo notices that Tim's kitchen has been damaged a fire, and he tries to bond with Tim over a mutual dislike of others who live in the neighborhood. It is clear that both are sexually interested in each other, but Tim doesn't want to get involved with someone underage who should be "home for your mum and dad" and continues to try to get rid of him.
At the dinner party, Robin makes several comments intended to remind Julian of the fact that he saw him earlier, leading to him making an angry outburst at the dinner table. Terry is out on Clapham Common where he meets a guy (Tim Woodward) sitting on a bench and sits next to him. The guy is clearly terrified of him, shaking when he offers him a match to light his cigarette. Terry engages him in small talk, with the underlying motive of working out whether the guy is gay or not. They are interrupted by cries from Alfie in the bushes and the guy escapes. Terry finds Alfie badly beaten up, but instead of helping him, he takes Will's ring and puts it on his own finger abandoning Alfie to his sad fate.
The dinner party is disturbed by an ambulance arriving, someone else having found Alfie's heavily bruised body on Clapham Common. Belinda is clearly distressed by this, running outside to see what has happened. Meanwhile, Will and Gavin are sitting on a bench, presumably in another part of Clapham Common given the title of the film (but actually miles away in the park on Primrose Hill in north London), with Will having fallen asleep on Gavin's shoulder. Gavin cuddles up to Will, and looks out over London. Terry returns home to his nan who is asleep in bed, while the dinner party discussion turns to gay men and sex in public places. The conversation clearly makes Robin uncomfortable, as Marion rants on about a perceived tendency to "push it [homosexuality] in your face". Belinda, clearly still upset by the beating that has occurred outside, breaks up the argument, making the point that "no one deserves to be treated like that", regardless of whether he was a straight man walking through the park or "sniffing around and fucking like a dog in the bushes".
Back in Tim's flat, Theo confesses to him how he watches him at night and masturbates over his sight. Theo gets upset when Tim laughs at this admission, but they then bond as Tim reassures him that "people are...scared of being different" and "you'll be happy enough". He admits to watching Theo too, and, although he continues to protest, Theo seduces him and they passionately kiss. Theo is the one in control of the situation; he undresses Tim, gives him a blowjob and then penetrates him on the floor. It is even implied that he is rather well sexually experienced, as Tim asks the young teen "Where'd you learn this?".
This scene is intercut with scenes of the dinner party, where Theo's parents discuss a neighbour who they believe to be a paedophile. When it is mentioned that the neighbour was recently petrol-bombed, it becomes clear that they are actually discussing Tim. Following this discussion, Natasha (Phoebe Nicholls) demands to go home to "see how my baby is". Returning home, she of course finds Theo missing from his room and catches sight of him, now dressed again, in Tim's flat. She heads over there, chased by her husband and eventually finds the flat. Theo is notably calm, maintaining the excuse that he came over to give Tim back his pen. Natasha clearly doesn't believe him saying "I can smell it" and threatens Tim before leaving not to "lay eyes on my son".
The next morning, we find that Alfie has died as a result of his injuries. Robin repeatedly insists, both on leaving the dinner party the night before and again the next morning, that Julian should report anything he saw in the toilets to the police. He refuses, and, as far as we know, does nothing. Terry meets another guy in the park with the apparent intention of again trying to teach gay men a lesson, but he is instead the one being taught as he is lured in the woods and beaten up by Merv (Ross O'Hennessey), a much larger guy, who wants to "teach a lesson" to Terry, suspecting Terry as being a gay man. Terry is treated in hospital by Gavin, who discovers the ring on his finger and asks Will about it. The latter claims to have taken the ring to the jeweller's. Will then turns on the television and discovers that Alfie has been murdered.
We again see Theo watching and wanking to the sight of Tim in his flat. Their eyes meet and Theo stands up, appearing fully naked before Tim. In response, Tim closes the curtains. At Danny's music lesson, his teacher observes kids taunting him through the window. She asks him about it, but he claims that nothing's bothering him. He is chased again on the way home, and the closing scene shows his fiddle lying smashed in the rain-soaked entrance to the tunnel.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
While I do agree with many of the comments and criticisms of fellow reviewers on this site that there is much cliché,a narrow, outdated and perplexing depiction of the gay experience today, and some offensiveness.I have to say that the interaction of the 14 year old boy with an older man is one of the most powerful, intense, moving and poetic moments I have seen on film in a very long time.
This film is about the events that happen to several gay men around Clapham Common in 36 hours.Due to the enormous number of characters involved, the beginning of the film is a little slow.
Over a two day period a series of interconnected events impact a disparate group of Londoners.Occasionally brilliant, often shocking and ultimately depressing exploration of contemporary urban gay sexuality and the resultant array of societal attitudes across age and class.
In part influenced by the horrendously brutal murder of Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common in 2005, Elyot creates a host of deeply unpleasant characters as the main focus of his exploration into homosexuality, its surface acceptance and ever-present homophobia across all social strata's today.Whilst astonishingly frank in its depiction of casual, anonymous sexual encounters in public toilets and open spaces (Clapham Common, Hamstead Heath) and the contrast between being 'out' versus being closeted and covert, Elyot falls back on the clichéd and contrived device of 'the dinner party' to enable a host of views to bubble up to the surface.
That the general view is that gay men can be universally accepted but only if they behave like the wealthy, urban, heterosexual upper middle-classes?
No, straight people don't go cruising for anonymous sex in toilets or parks, but that's only because they don't need to.Elyot paints a deeply depressing picture in Clapham Junction, which may in part reflect the truth, but he fails to find any counterpoint.
The minor strand of the young black boy playing his violin in the face of intolerance and persecution only serves to crack the nut with a hammer - we've already learnt that it takes bravery to be who you are in the face of adversity (witness the deeply unsettling, painfully honest encounter between Theo and Tim), so why bludgeon the viewer with this message a second time?
The closing scene is gratuitous in light of all we have witnessed before.Shergold and Elyot are well served by their actors, with Treadaway and Mawle in particular offering spectacularly honest, real and brave performances  their plot-strand is perhaps the most challenging, the most unsettling but ultimately the most truthful story, and this time the concluding lack of hope is in proportion and understandable.Moments of brilliance then, from all involved, but in the end Clapham Junction is deeply flawed and devoid of any shred of hope.
The message of this movie is that gays have ONLY bitchy sex, on public toilets and all of that in a violent way.
To make it short, the movie is good for people who are gay or who have at least experience with it.
The problem with Kevin Elyot's (writer) and Adrian Shergold's (director) boldly ambitious "Clapham Junction" is that it attempts to bite off so much more than it can possibly chew in just under two hours.
At times it looks like he's trying to cram in forty years of gay sexual history into a night and day and it just doesn't work.
Nothing wrong with that, you might say; it has worked as a backdrop to many splendid dramas in the past but you have to suspend quite a lot of disbelief when in a city the size of London with a sizeable gay population, all the gay characters keep bumping into each other in clubs, public toilets, on Clapham Common itself or at dinner parties or just in living across the street from each other.
It's a banal plot device and you can't help feeling Elyot would have made his point a lot better if the stories hadn't been connected.Nor is Elyot particularly good at serving up dialogue that sounds believable or naturalistic.
He even gives us the self-loathing bit of gay trade who beats up his pick-up for the night, (and later gets beaten up himself), and the film's most successful story is the one between the pedophile and the fourteen year old boy who worships him, (this only let down by casting a twenty-three year old actor as the boy).It is also very unevenly acted.
Detractors will, of course, find this story the most objectionable for obvious reasons although the producers have cushioned the blow by casting the obviously older Tredaway as the boy.The film itself takes as its basis the real-life murder of Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common in 2005 but the impact is weakened by the episodic structure.
The drama takes place over 24 or so hours in the life of 7 (or maybe 8) gay or bisexual men and youths.
It's as if writer Kevin Elyot wants to throw in every concern and thought he's ever had about gay life into a single drama.
This movie gets another mixed review from me.I didn't mind the negative portrayals so much (unsympathetic people exist, after all, among straights and gays alike, as does hatred and hypocrisy, and the performances were mostly really good), but I didn't like that that's all we get in this film.
All the depression, the violence, the negativity left me feeling rather bleak and unsatisfied, thinking "But that's not all there is!"And, on a rather superficial note, as a big fan of 'Maurice' I did wish for more interaction between Wilby and Graves.
However it was more a problem for me with Clapham Junction when it was shown as part of the Channel 4 series of films and programmes to mark the 40th anniversary since male homosexuality was legalised.
Nobody is cast in a good light  the film opens with the groom of a civil partnership couple cheating with a waiter during the reception before following on with queer bashing, cottaging, a 14 year old seducing (then f***ing) an older man etc etc.
Shergold's direction is OK in terms of the shots he gets but in terms of helping the material or the actors, he doesn't seem able  although Elyot's script offers him little support either.Overall then a poor film that wallows in negativity while presenting the modern gay experience.
The actors play each character so perfectly right from the beginning that you truly believe them - exactly what should happen!
There are gay men like the ones in the film, I sometimes meet them, but they certainly do not represent the majority.
There are some good actors in this movie, and some well-directed scenes...but toward what end?
The filmmakers seem to have an agenda, but what is it?I think they sincerely want to reduce violence against gay men, but not by showing the victims as vibrant, valuable human beings who ought to be valued and respected or at least left in peace.Instead, they seek to reduce violence against men who go cottaging (looking for sex with other men in toilets and other public places) by making such a practice appear so absolutely pathetic and repulsive that no one would ever want to do such a thing; all the cruising and sex scenes are exceedingly unpleasant.
There is no joy of the hunt leading to blissful orgasm here, just sad creatures who have no idea who they are out blindly looking for a momentary thrill to make them feel something, anything, knowing they might get beaten up or killed at any moment.The married man who has sex with other men in the toilet is a craven alcoholic.
How he envies his straight married friend from university days!Maybe gays should "grow up" and get married like other people.
No, he will probably end up going to that toilet looking for sex, and get killed.A young or otherwise impressionable person seeing this movie will get the message: your gay impulses are gross.
Then we have the gay basher who is himself bashed when he reveals his true nature and tries to have sex with a fat, ugly guy.
So the lesson to be learned here is that it is not possible for gay men to have happy productive lives or 'normal' sex.
And if there were anyone associated with this film who is gay, they should be ashamed of themselves for promoting these negative stereotypes..
It's just so slow it's painful.Another review noted that the film seems to reinforce negative stereotypes in the gay community.
With the slow pacing, you're given a lot of character development but because the scenes just drag on, you lose track of these things quickly.It's trying to make a point, except it all gets lost in-you guessed it- the pacing.
The film centers around a number of people who either live near Clapham Junction, or those who pass through the Heath or "park" (an area known as a gay meeting site) for one reason or another.
London today is notoriously liberal and pro-gay almost to the point of being visited by thought police to insinuate otherwise, and the plot centers around several gay men who range from open or "out", closeted (married to women), discovering and even self-loathing.
The characters are lightly linked and do little to show the positive aspects of gay life.
Luke Treadaway (Theo) and Joseph Mawle (Tim) were the most memorable.The high IMDb viewer rating (currently 7.50) might be lower if it were not for student Theo's unambiguously nude scenes.What seems to me not to be on target is the write-up on the USA DVD package: "Inspired by True Events / In this riveting film about sexual tolerance in modern society, the paths of several men intersect during a dramatic thirty-six hours in which their lives are changed forever.
After another man falls victim to a violent gay-bashing incident, the homosexual community of Clapham Junction comes together to bring the assailants to justice." My USA DVD timed out at 99 minutes and had SDH English subtitles and three previews as its extra features.
As I gay man, I really liked this film.
But the acting is very good and violence against gay men still exists today.
Having lived in London and going there often now than I am older, I do see the similarities of how the "old days" of homophobia are once again a lot more apparent with bashings happening mostly from different groups.
I have to laugh at the reviewer from Berkely (who just happens to rent mostly gay or muscle movies) because he condemns the lack of story and the insight this film exposes of how regressive the behavior of the so called "enlightened" middle class members as this well acted cast are so subtly afraid and fearing the general violence returning to their lives.No longer does one believe that legalization of the life style as holding up and it is artfully revealed at the dinner party.
Joan Rivers says in her act "that all Brits are gay and YOU know it" because good manners and breeding are no longer part of the old ways and the way the crazed mother behaved at the dinner party and the beating occurs to the most attractive and harmless young man in what is a posh area of the city.
The scene of the young man with the closeted and terrified handsome older neighbor is something most gays have to go through at some time, but has never been so truthfully filmed with the testosterone overwhelming the innocent while blending into yet another story of verbalizing the increasing homophobia.
This is really well directed and the message is not a shallow story, but when one sees the gangs of thousands of immigrants who have changed Europe, the Joan Rivers joke all of a sudden becomes kind of a reality because there is not the refinement and control of behavior where almost every gay, closeted or flamboyant gay was accepted and free to "carry on".The war and "don't ask, don't tell" is causing a lot of grief for gays and it is just as apparent in the states, but not as finely drawn as this film presents unspoken truths.
It is one of the best gay themed films which has been released for other reasons than to titillate and look for nude men and gay sex which is typical of most gay themed films.CLAPHAM JUNCTION is artfully done and horrendously sad along with the rest of what is happening around the world.I doubt if anyone wasn't somehow moved or bothered by this film..
First, I'd like to say this movie is dated in the themes it portrays, but the acting is very good.
It opens with a gay civil union where one of the grooms tries to have a fling with a male waiter (I thought this has a lot of gall and I didn't like this portrayal at a gay union; very unlikely).The movie dealt with gay bashing in several different ways with multiple characters.
At first I thought this might have been someone the first gay bashed victim may have hired to get even with they guy, but the movie never disclosed that.There was a 14 year old boy who was possessed with an older man who turned out to be a convicted pedaphile, living across the street.
It was very well acted and the actors characters you did want to feel different about but pedaphiles do not deserve sympathy.
For the most part, the movie from beginning to end circled around one of the grooms wedding rings, except the pedaphile piece.All together I thought it was a good movie, well acted, but exaggerated a lot of todays actual gay social life.
It concentrated a lot on violence and outdated gay sex scenarios.I would buy this movie to add to my personal DVD collection but would be hesitant to share watching it with friends..
Such a pity the writer is normally good and the assembled cast was good, but quite frankly I thought this was a dreadful waste of a good opportunity.The stories were full of tired old clichés.A gay man picking up youth at his own civil partnership ceremony.
A lot of the men I know who are now in civil partnerships have been together for years and in the majority of cases have been faithful.Guys search for sex in public toilets  why would you today when everywhere is filmed by CCTV cameras, it is so easy to meet people in gay pubs, bars and clubs these days.
Unless married men go to toilets to seek same sex  I don't know.Everyone off there heads on drugs  and I will admit that there are a lot of drugs around on the gay scene  just as there is in straight clubs as well.
The trouble is that anyone watching this will come away with the impression that all gay men are sleazy, drug fuelled, sex mad hedonists.I couldn't agree more with the line spoken by the woman at the dinner party "so what if they are sniffing around for sex in bushes like foxes  no one deserves that".
The lives of several gay men interconnect around clapham over the course of 36 hours.
I was extremely exited when i heard the 40th year since homosexuality was decriminalised was to be marked with this one off drama, and was looking forward to clapham junction giving an insight and celebrating the changes that society has made in dealing with homosexuality in 21st century Britain.I was profoundly disappointed to see that the programme makers decided to concentrate on negative stereotypes of promiscuous partners, horrendous homophobic attacks,closeted husbands and predatory homosexuals preying on underage boys.this type of drama into gay lifestyle gives an untrue representation of how modern gay people live their lives showing that nothing much has changed from the stereotype of the 1950s and 60s.
Good performances by the actors involved but i can't help but feel that had some of the pointless scenes been cut, the running time could have been shortened and the programme could have concentrated on a lot less pointless characters.
While it was cleverly constructed to intertwine the lives of a variety of gay men from different backgrounds, I felt it used sensationalism to a very negative end.
This movie tells the story of what happens one week to a number of gay men in and around Clapham Junction, a well-known gay cruising area in London.The characters include various gay men who visit the park, including a gay couple, two or three closeted married men, a teenage musician, an amoral park lothario, a basher and his victims.
Gay bashing is a major part of the plot.In one narrative, we follow sexy but tortured Tim, a suspected pedophile, as he is seduced by 14-year-old Theo.
The movie feeds on the stereotype of gay men as unhappy creatures leading pathetic lives.
It is both realistic and frightening.Gay people, young and old, are forced to live a clandestine life with an underground satisfaction of their desires or impulses.
If he would look for girls she would just be satisfied but not for boys, what's more men.The second type of enemies are gangs of gay hunters or in fact hunters of anything that is different and one of their victims is a gay waiter who is just walking home through a common park.
The film has one moment of extremely morbid humor here since one of these predators meet with another of these predators and one will end up in hospital.Gay men seem to have one more enemy which is among themselves this time.
The hope that one closeted gay man might do the right thing and help the police catch the killers who took the life of the waiter.
According to this movie, all gays want sex, all the time.
(And when gays have to run away from thugs, they always run to places where there are no people around, such as woods, so that no one can help them.)An unpleasant and incoherent work.