It’s Halloween, and the dance floor has been rolled out, the alcohol has been mixed and the candy bought: it’s time for Kevulie IX – Kevin (Christopher J Domig) and Julie’s (Lucy Walters) annual Halloween party. Their best friends, Jesse (Gregory Perri) and Jen (Amelia Martin), have been married for ten years and are on the brink of divorce. Having kicked Jesse out of their house, Jen reconnects with the group’s missing piece, Lawrence (Peter O’Leary), and decides to go to Kevulie IX despite the awkwardness that is sure to come with seeing her estranged husband. Little do they know, Kevulie IX will be the last Halloween party they spend together, as the group struggles with impending pregnancy, adultery and the realisation that life gets in the way of being who you want to be.
I suppose you could call Bastards of Young a late bloomer. The film’s pacing is terribly slow at the beginning, and with very little exposition it’s hard to sympathise with Jen’s unhappiness, or Jesse’s ignorance. It’s a good half an hour before we find out that the main characters are supposed to have been friends for over ten years; had writer/director Josiah Signor found a way to introduce this in the first five minutes, it would certainly have given the friendships more layers, and the characters more authority when commenting on each other’s relationships. Any depth that the characters have is revealed late in the game, when Jen and Jesse confront their marital woes and Julie finally reveals her fears to her husband. It’s a real shame, because whilst the second half of the film is interesting, Bastards of Young runs the serious risk of losing its audience with its slow-paced first half.
When the film gets going, however, it’s very good and has great emotional depth. Domig and Walters have a fantastic final scene together, and it was nice to see them have room to move other than being the facilitators for a Jesse/Jen confrontation. Perri and Martin similarly shine in the film’s final act. The film’s constant MVP is O’Leary, who injects a slow plot with much needed energy and is the film’s main source of humour. Despite struggling in the first half, Bastards of Young finds its feet with a strong and emotionally charged second half.
Review Score: TWO AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Bastards of Young was released on Video-on-Demand (VOD) today.
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