Review - Elliot Loves

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

Elliot Loves explores the turbulent love life of Elliot throughout two pivotal parts of his life, as an inquisitive 10-year-old dealing with his loving yet seemingly unhappy mother and as a naive 21-year-old looking for love in all the wrong places in New York.

The initial concept of the film intrigued me I must admit, especially as I was wondering how they would mirror the two separate parts of his life. The way it was executed by cutting segments into what appeared to be chapters and by mirroring similar and important parts of his life as a child and young adult were done effectively and allow the audience to see how the character was the way he is.

The character of Elliot himself is a very intriguing one, as we have all either been in his position or know a friend that has been there. By this I mean an extremely naïve young person looking for love in all the wrong places before they finally realise you don’t find love, love finds you.

The film is funny in parts, and bittersweet and sad in others, but the scenes in the past have to be given credit as the better parts of the film. This is mainly due to the acting from Quentin Araujo as the young Elliot and Elena Goode as his mother, as they make you laugh and feel sympathy for the characters. These are without a doubt the stand out performances of the film.

Other good points of the film include the way it was shot, as it is softly focused and looks romantic in many key parts. The music also adds to the emotions of the film. One of my personal favourite parts is the animation scene, which allows them to do things they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to and it breaks the film up a bit.

However it isn’t all good, and unfortunately the bad definitely outweighs them. At the very beginning of the film I initially thought, “What the hell is this?” as it starts off a bit hammy. Even though it gets better, the present day scenes always fall into the hammy, trying too hard to be funny category, and as we all know, when you try too hard it just isn’t funny. Much of the dialogue and scenes could have been cut or shortened, as a few parts feel like they’ve been on for around 20 minutes, despite actually only being on for about five.

One major problem I had with the film is how it tries to flit between being a comedy and being a tragedy. This almost made me lose focus and interest many times. If they had made it a complete tragedy about someone looking for love and failing, or made it a comedic take on this the entire way through the film, it would have worked a lot better.

The film is ok in parts but the bad just outweighs the good. If it had been executed a little better and stuck to one theme then it would have worked a lot better.