Lonesome: A Terrifying Portrait Of Gay Solitude

Being gay is sadly, not about being happy. The struggle to slam solitude and overcome it is a constant battle that the homosexual community faces. Lonesome, an Australian film directed by Craig Boreham, is a terrifying portrait of loneliness. It takes us through a journey of one man’s self-loathing and tentative salvation, and its does so with least fuss and noise.

There is a lot of sex, of course. Films about gay relationships have much more nudity and sex than films about heterosexual relationships. This could be attributed to the relative incipiency of gay stories in cinema.

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Lonesome doesn’t care to close doors. It has a lot of lovemaking and nudity, some of it unnecessary. In one particularly uncalled-for moment of, shall we say revelation, the film’s protagonist Casey asks a landlady whether he could use her bathroom. Let’s just say the camera – always restless, lurking and curious in this film—follows Casey into the private space for no rhyme or reason.

The tone of a majority LGBTQ films is often defiant and angry: we can do what we like, go where we want, have sex any time of the day. Luckily for this film of many virtues (and some self-indulgent vices) the urge to purge the body and soul of all guilt and repression is over-ridden by the sense of desolation that envelopes Casey (Josh Lavery) as he arrives in Sydney from the rural Australia after being outed by his married bisexual lover back home.

Casey’s father has disowned him. When he tries to connect with his mother, the frightened woman (outstanding voice performance by the woman who plays Casey mother on the phone) tells him to never return home.

Casey practically has no one to lean on. In this vulnerable condition he meets Tib (Daniel Gabriel), a wounded and battered homosexual who is not looking for a permanent relationship. Tib lets Casey into his home. There is pounding sex, and then feelings seep in which Tib firmly repudiates.

Director Caig Boreham shoots the two men inside Tib’s home in a saturated light, as though we are looking at the sudden flareup of passion between the two men through neon lenses in the light of a flickering passion. The framing of the shots is distinctly boudoir-ish, letting us stand back in the glaring light of a melting mutual passion.

We know this won’t last. Tib drives Casey away from the one source of comfort in his life. Josh Lavery is perfunctorily inspired as Casey. He gets into the skin of his shattered character and lodges his impulses into his character’s consciousness.

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The last half-hour of the storytelling is harrowing. With no home or future, Casey takes up a job as resident sex slave for Pietro (played by gay rugby player Ian Roberts). What we see next is the bottom-most pit of self-abasement.

Neither director Craig Boreham nor his leading man shies away from plunging into the morass of the underground gay community. Lonesome is a film with a lot of heart. But it is not for the weak hearted.