A Cinematographic Oddity

While I cannot explain the chemical synapses in my brain that prompted my viewing of "Rock Haven," I can, however, explain some of the film's shortcomings as to claim otherwise would be an injury to one's generally honest nature.

The acting had certain elements that were believable, though not entirely out of the clutch of melodrama-cum-impoverished skill which is, I think, a consummation of one's acting much yet to be desired. As the opening of the film commenced to lay siege to the viewer's eyes and any other nervous processes affected by the sense visual with various beach-side images that, despite actual origin, seemed advertisedly [sic.] plagiarised from a nature network's archives, one experiences the disappointment of finding that initial fears that the plot may be dominated by poorly crafted and fiercely archetypal characters are, in fact, true and even increasingly so. This lack of the characters' depth, or even personhood, really, is enhanced by the actors' shortcomings (exempli gratia: the un-nacted, or mis-acted, awkwardness that is conveyed of each actor with their character, etc., etc. etc.) but is primarily caused by far-fetched, unnatural, canned, mechanically generated, and thoughtlessly strewn-together dialogue that is laced with the clichés and sophomoric syntactical non-sequiturs that are to be expected of maybe one whose command, creative or functional, of the English language is both dubious and, at best, highly tenuous.

One cannot help thinking that the film in a way tries to solve a problem that it creates for the express reason of only solving it. We are highly aware of the beach-side town's existence, but it is an existence markedly questionable: it has a population of three people and four half-people, but I'll get to this later,, and apparently only has three edifices; that is not a town. That is a set; an elaborate one, but an artificial set no less. The church presumably has attendees as the audience is privy to the scene where a great many seat is lined up, though they remain for the duration of the film empty. The problem it solves is not, as a matter of fact, homosexuality, or coming out, or whatsoever various other emotional appeals the film invokes; those, firstly, are not ever problems in the film per se, and they are certainly not the crux of the film's problema, after all the words gay, homosexual, coming out, love, teenager, sex, dating, relationship are not even mentioned in the film, to name a few. Of course the film does a poignantly and incredibly good job at masking itself and parading that it does solve or, even, address and deal with such profound and significant topics like social hurdles, real American cultural ramifications, and generational conventions that otherwise a film of the intended calibre would at least attempt to include.

If we were to push the intellectual case even more, a close-reading would reveal the complete and completely avoidable failure of the film. We have no sense of any temporality whatsoever which is a serious neglect further aggravated by the damning omission of anything that makes the town real: not the slightest detail, not a single and much desired hint of reality.

Now for the population of this town: three and four halves. While Brady, Clifford, and Marty have the workings that allow them to pass somewhat as real people, despite the glaring shortcomings in how they are portrayed and how they are made to fit a terribly unnatural archetype made further uncomfortable by mindless dialogue, the remaining characters are necessary for a function; they are the legs of the chair that make this film, important, but still wooden legs.
The pastor is a puppet that needs to be around because there is a church, but his duties as pastor are neither clear nor is his identity as a pastor taken beyond the the occasional and cordial quick conversation upon which the stability of the chair, as I shall continue to call this film, I think, is made to lie.
Clifford's Madame Cleo mother is neither entertaining nor is she a comic relief, and she is neither interesting nor witty, and she is neither real nor credible; the father is always away which is a convenience that allows Clifford to romance Brady as though they were all much older, (they could not actually have have been redone to be much older because our metaphorical chair is upholstered in a cheap vinyl made to look like the leather of an emotionally charged coming-of-age drama). The mother is thus reduced to the kooky character who lives in a room beneath the stairs and does things like show off a lunch-box proudly designed with a picture of Shiva--or maybe it was the Dattatreya--while at the same time reading the nervous aura of her closeted son's soon-to-be right-wing born-again Evangelical foot-washing bible-thumping queer teenage lover. While the mother is interesting, her role is another stumpy and wobbly leg: the necessary someone-at-home that an over-excited editor or writer decided to make even more over the top by making her a meddlesome ally for the boys before allowing the boys to really come to know with each other that they will need one.
Peggy, in this regard, follows suite. She is the writer's deus-ex-machina device, though there's a little too much machina and not enough proverbial deus. She falls into the suddenly very queer boy's life over dinner. The mother has invited her and apparently Brady, like the viewer, has no real idea from whence or why or how she came to be; homosexual or not, the dinner was awkward enough that one wonders if the acting suddenly reached an unexpected and unrepeated zenith, or if the general comfort of the actors had reached an all time nadir that coincided fortunately, but whatever the reason, the dinner scene failed. It posited the stupidity of the viewers as it sought to confirm Brady's homosexuality--among the plethora of things that should have been detailed or confirmed, his orientation was not one--in the hammed-up way that it did, presumably while the film--we are now personifying the film--thought itself, quite wrongly, rather subtle. Peggy's boyfriend is neither interesting nor real; he is distracting, confusing, and, much like several things upon which the film relies and symbiotically produces, irrelevant.

By the time the ending swoops in, one is too exhausted and in need of cranial detoxification by all the limbs upon which one had to go to much care any more at the poverty and temporal calamity that it is. The ending is an unfortunate display of inanity that seeks resolution without any real resolve and revolves around a social/familial upheaval that has no revolution. The problem, primarily, I think, is in its incredulously simple solution that, while reconciling everything and everyone--Brady to his orientation, the pastor to his flock, the mother to her son, and, back again, Brady to his faith--is so far fetched that it has transcended the cliché of deus ex machina--which is not a cliché, but this film has rendered that device as such--so far into the realm of irritation that one cannot help but wonder how serious the writer actually took his own ending and if he did not intend some poorly hidden tongue-in-cheek excessiveness that is to this film what the tenth car wheel must, sadly, be to a squirrel long deceased.

While the film was arguably interesting despite its picric nature, as a work even remotely of aesthetic or dramatic creativity, or one trying to discuss coming-of-age pain and hardship, or, as the film takes the most pride in attempting, as being pertinent to homosexual/queer issues of modern America, it fails. And in its thoughtless and truly avoidable downward spiral and crash, it is so weak that its failure, at least, succeeds to leave the viewer both unaffected and, thankfully, unscathed.

-t