This updated "Death in Venice" is about Giles De'Ath (John Hurt), a stuffy British widower and author who doesn't like anything modern. He reminds people that his surname is pronounced "Day-ath," Giles gets locked out of his house one day and decides to see an E. M. Forrester movie adaptation at a cinema to pass the time. He mistakenly goes into the wrong theater and, as he is about to leave the American teenager comedy "Hot Pants College II", notices young actor Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley) who immediately strikes his fancy. He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. From there, we go on a journey with Giles as his attraction to the mediocre actor goes from slight interest to an obsession.
Giles travels to Chesterton, Long Island where Ronnie lives and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor and that's why he admires him. He wants to change Ronnie's career from low-brow to high-brow and start a new career in Europe. Audrey (Fiona Loewi) is the teen idol's fashion model girlfriend, considerably sharper than she first appears. Hurt's futile but brilliant attempts to seduce Ronnie under Audrey's nose is both poignant and hilarious. His meeting with him in some ways pushes the reserved writer's emotional threshold over the top. We come to see Giles as half stalker, half poète maudit, transfigured by a romantic obsession. The subtext of homosexuality is too obvious to be taken seriously, for the real subtext is something more subtle. This movie shows that the love you feel with your eyes and ears is more meaningful than anything that happens below the waist. In the diner scene near the end, Giles admits to Ronnie that he feels love. Ronnie rejects him. The few scenes after that show that Giles' life has been greatly enriched by his non-physical experiences with the heartthrob actor.
The homosexual undercurrent in this wry, offbeat comedy can play comfortably in front of straight viewers looking for humor, satire, crisp writing, fresh perspectives, and great acting. Based on the acclaimed short novel by Gilbert Adair, the screenplay was written by Richard Kwietniowski, who also directed..
