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B&B
R1 - America - Breaking Glass Pictures Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (22nd December 2017). |
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The Film
 Award of Excellence Special Mention (Feature Film - LGBT): Hummingbird Films (won) - Accolade Competition, 2017 HIFF Award (Best Score in a Feature Film): Simon Burch and Dan Jones (won), (Best Actor in a Feature Film): Paul McGann (won), and (Best Director of a Feature Film): Joe Ahearne (won) - Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, 2017 After suing St. Jude's B&B for being refused a double bed and winning, "bad winner" Marc (DaVinci's Demons' Tom Bateman) and husband Fred (Skins' Sean Teale) have returned for their stay. Although passive-aggressive proprietor Josh (Withnail & I's Paul McGann) has done away with all of the double beds in favor of two twin beds (in the interest of "equal treatment"), Marc is determined to be able to freely express their love, much to the chagrin of Fred who is warned off by Josh's worried and closeted sixteen-year-old son Paul (The Durrells in Corfu's Callum Woodhouse) that the announcement of their visit on social media is bound to attract unwanted attention to both sides. Although Josh (who plans to retire for the night with earplugs) seems defeated to Marc, Fred is not so sure when hunky Alexei (James Tratas) checks in without a reservation. Although Marc is sure that the Russian is gay and cruising them, Fred thinks he looks like a Neo-Nazi gay basher, especially once he gets a look at the man's prison tattoos. When he discovers that Alexei has inquired as to the location of a local cruising park and that eager Paul plans to accompany him out that night, he tries to warn Josh who is not only disinclined to accept advice from his enemies but is also in denial about his son's sexuality. Marc believes that Josh has brought Alexei to merely intimidate them until they discover a phone jammer in the stranger's room and that he has blocked their car in the driveway. As night falls, the couple is not sure who they can trust and whether or not they and young Paul are in danger. Starting out on a lightly comic and satirical note, B&B is a refreshingly sober and tense thriller in which the twists are character-driven rather than structural machinations, and the both sides of the inciting issue are invested with an effective mix of depth and ambiguity.
Video
Breaking Glass' mid-bitrate, progressive, anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen encode gets the job done with this slickly-shot yet economical digitally-lensed thriller.
Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is front-oriented but makes effective use of the surrounds for music and unnerving noises as well as atmosphere. English Closed Captioning is available. 
Extras
The behind-the-scenes (3:46) is short but informative as producer Hannah Thomas (A Dark Song) discusses the location scouting and the challenges that the location presented for shooting inside and out while the cast & crew interviews (10:38) are also rather brief press kit talking heads. The outtakes (3:37) are all bloopers and the only other extras are the film's trailer (1:52) and previews for other films. 
Overall
Starting out on a lightly comic and satirical note, B&B is a refreshingly sober and tense thriller in which the twists are character-driven rather than structural machinations, and the both sides of the inciting issue are invested with an effective mix of depth and ambiguity. 
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