Dream Boy (film)
| Dream Boy | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | James Bolton |
| Produced by | James Bolton Herb Hamsher |
| Screenplay by | James Bolton |
| Based on |
Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley |
| Starring |
Stephan Bender Max Roeg |
| Music by | Richard Buckner |
| Cinematography | Sarah Levy |
| Edited by | Annette Davey Chris Houghton |
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Production
company |
Mettray Reformatory Pictures
Here! Films |
| Distributed by | Regent Releasing |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.2 million |
| Box office | $6 million |
Dream Boy is a 2008 gay-themed romantic drama film written and directed by James Bolton and based on Jim Grimsley's 1995 novel of the same name about two gay teenagers who fall in love in the rural South during the late 1970s.
Fifteen-year-old Nathan Davies (Stephan Bender) moves to St. Francisville, Louisiana, a small Southern town with his parents (Thomas Jay Ryan and Diana Scarwid) and starts to befriend the older boy next door, Roy (Maximillian Roeg), fellow high school student and bus driver, who is in a relationship with Evelyn (Rooney Mara). Nathan and Roy start to develop their relationship by helping each other with school work at Nathan's house. While Roy is teaching Nathan how to solve an Algebra problem, Nathan touches his hand. Roy pulls away at first, but then takes hold of Nathan's hand.
After they finish their work, the boys go for a walk in the woods, finding an old cemetery, where they stop and start kissing. They undress down to everything but socks and underwear, and lay in an embrace together. The relationship between Nathan and his father is revealed to be a little strange and full of tension. One morning Roy pulls the bus into a part in the woods and they kiss and Nathan touches Roy. Roy asks if Nathan has ever done this with anyone before, and he promises he never has. Roy takes Nathan swimming with Burke and Randy, but Nathan admits he can't swim. While watching Roy, Burke threatens to throw him in the water, but Roy stops him. While Roy is driving them home, he pulls onto the side of the road and they start kissing. When Nathan starts to have sex with Roy, Roy angrily stops him, asking "who taught [him] to screw like that". Nathan swears "no one".
When Nathan gets home that night, his father wants to know if he had a good time. Nathan is on the brink of tears as he answers his father. He ties a string up to his dresser drawer and bedpost, tucks his pillows under his sheets, and moves to the floor to sleep. In the night he hears a thud and runs from his room, because it was his father sneaking in. It is later revealed that his father had touched him in the past inappropriately. Nathan sleeps outside and doesn't come home. He does for meals but returns to his tree outside after.
Roy finds him and offers him a place to sleep in his family's barn. The next morning, Nathan goes home for breakfast and his father catches him, yelling at him to not run from him, but Nathan's mother interrupts and he runs to the school bus. Later, Roy tells Nathan they're going camping with Burke and Randy that weekend. That night, Roy tells ghost stories around the campfire, and in their tent, Nathan gives Roy a blowjob, and Roy asks him if he minds when Roy doesn't do those things back to him, and Nathan says he doesn't mind. Hiking through the woods, the boys find an old plantation house. They go inside to investigate, and Nathan hears a voice call his name, resembling his father's. They then find cloth with what looks like to be blood on it, and they smell sulfur (which Nathan says is the smell of the Devil), and the boys see a shadow move up the stairs.
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