FILM: Watercolors – A Story Of First Gay Love And Lots And Lots Of Teenage Angst

Beginning with promising artist Danny arriving at his debut art exhibition in New York, Watercolors is a film that follows him through flashbacks back into his past and the life changing love affair between him, a quiet student excelling in art, and his polar opposite Carter, a high school athlete.

Starring Tye Olson (who won the Outfest for best actor for the film) as the young Danny, and Kyle Clare as Carter, if you’re looking for a film full of laughs at the trials and tribulations of young gay love, you’re definitely not going to find it in Watercolors because if there is one thing that this film excels at more than anything, it is it’s angst, and whilst it may seem to be begin with to be the much quieter Danny who suffers most, it soon becomes obvious that Carter is even troubled as the boy he is falling in love with. Failing to live up to the expectations of his recovering alcoholic father, Carter soon spirals into a depression made only worse by the harassment he suffers once his sexuailty is exposed, and leads him soon to turn to drugs not only achieve, but to escape.

To say Watercolors is a film deserving of an Oscar would be a step or two or three (okay let’s be honest about ten or twenty) away, but don’t take that to mean it’s not worth watching. Yes this is a film that features all those same old scenes that it seems to be law for every film of young gay love to have (… tentative first gay kiss…. check …. skinny dipping… check….. rain drenched love scene…. check….. lots and lots of gay teenage angst…. check check check…), and yes we could have perhaps have done without some of them, but it does act to balance itself out with incredibly touching scenes, such as that between Danny and his mother (Casey Kramer) after he is beaten up when fellow students realise he’s gay. Easily a scene that could have been turned into something overdramatic, with Kramer recoiling in horror at the discovery of her son’s sexuality, David Oliveras shows his true writing talent constructing a scene of few words, but powerful sentiment as Kramer instead acts to put her son and his need for support before her and how she feels about this revelation about her son.

As much as this is a film about love, it’s also one about angst and so don’t expect Watercolors to end happily. It doesn’t, with the somewhat unexpected twist acting to not only take you by surprise, but take this film to a whole new level that will have you wishing that it would have just done it a whole lot earlier. Well that is until we have to return to the goddamn awful art exhibition scenes again, something that definitely needs to be cut out before this is re-released.

In terms of performance Tye and Kyle definitely deserve the praise for the film that they have got delivering good performances from the material that they had to work with, something that is equally true of Kramer. If there is one weak character it’s that of Carter’s father. Overly negative towards his son and frankly uncaring there isn’t enough depth to the character to make this believable, something that is a weakness enough of it’s own, but when he is meant to be pivotal to the downfall of his son, it acts to make the huge impact that Carter feels is being put on him by his father far less easily to believe.

Bringing together the teenage angst genre with the love story genre, Watercolors does feel, to start with, like just any other gay teenage love story and have you questioning if it’s really worth carrying on with it. My advice is yes. I admit you are going to want to have a delete button on your DVD player to remove some of those requisite gay film moments, but stick with it and you’ll find yourself surprised at the end by just how moved you were by the convincing performances by these young men.

Watercolors is released on 30th August and is available to pre-order now from Amazon.