Looking: The Movie (2016)

The drama itself was so awesome and brilliant!the only thing that audiences needed at the time was just one other season,a final season, not just 80 min which even wasn't semi-enough for patrick himself! just in order not to blow up your imagination of your favorite show!they destroyed a very sweet love,very lovely couple,because there was no time to figure their problems out! you easily can feel kevin's love to patrick..Russell tovey was a genius in acting indeed!! i wished it ended differently ..it was so heartbreaking for me...

If anyone bothered to watch the 'Looking' series before watching this movie they would realize that "Looking" was more about Patrick forever looking outward, rather than inward, to find himself. The 'Looking' series was smartly done to showcase Patrick and friends living in San Francisco as average modern day gay people troubled with personal needs and wants while juggling the demands of scratching out a comfortable life in a big city. Nothing remarkable nor outstanding happens in their lives. It's just daily life as the majority of civilization lives it.In "Looking: the movie" Patrick returns to Frisco to attend a wedding. We find out Patrick had moved back east and this is his first visit in years. He is ambivalent about this trip because he knows he is certain to cross the path of old flames and Patrick really doesn't want to bring those feelings back to the surface.As the story progresses mostly nothing happens (outside of a lot of drinking and eating) because everyone has gone onward with their life and they don't expect anything more from Patrick other to be their for the wedding. What appears as a simple non story is actually full of examples of human interaction with other humans and the misconceptions that come along with it. The story ends pretty much as it started - steps are taken forward but we forever find our-self in the same place.

Understated masterpiece - that's what I feel Looking is as a whole, with the movie being the final installment, perfectly wrapping up the television show. The trials of Patrick upon returning to San Francisco for a short visit - on the occasion of Eddie and Agustin's wedding - are explored from many different angles, allowing us a beautiful, final look at the journey of this young man and the people who surrounded him and changed him along the way.Upon finishing the movie, I wished I could personally thank every single one of the people involved in making the show and in ending it with this gem of a film. The series was interesting, daring, different, honest, artistic and, while the show was a slow burner so it took its time getting there, it was also very entertaining. The movie picks up and continues this stroll effortlessly while giving us an idea of how much better still the show could have been had the creators been given a longer time frame for each episode. the film drove home how good, how brilliant even, this creative effort has been, making me both incredibly happy and grateful that we got this movie as a send off and utterly blue that there's going to be no more Looking.The unique brilliancy of the show stretches into the movie with the beautiful, melancholic cinematography, the nuanced build-up, the way that everything tied in together in such a way that you could find the ending along every step of the way (you could find the film's ending present in the show itself as well as along the movie) and the insistence on taking a deep, inquiring look at characters, their development and the dynamics of their most intimate relationships. I have some things I may have wanted to see done a little differently, but not enough to take away from how incredible an experience this ride has been. The movie summed everything up in a way which was so right, I'm still emotional over it after having watched it more than once. SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON Beyond all the general praise, I have to give a special round of applause to how the show wrapped up the story-line of Patrick's love life and his eventual ultimate romantic choice. The movie goes through a variety of options of how Patrick might end up in that respect - alone, with a new love interest (explored through a one night stand with a younger, much less inhibited guy than Patrick ever got to be), with Dom (the best friend turning into a surprising love match scenario), with Kevin and in each of these scenes we get a little glimpse of why that isn't quite right. In each of these, Patrick's feelings for Richie are present in some way (in certain scenes it's more explicit than in others). In contrast with these scenes - which seem to explore an idea, a notion of a certain future for Patrick, always coming up with the sense it's not it - we get scenes with Richie. From the get go, they're the only ones in which it feels like we don't just have an explored notion, but also actual growth and change in their relationship, as Patrick has changed and matured and Richie seems to become acutely aware of this, changing something critical from their dynamics in season 2, while still maintaining the same sense of longing you got between the two of them during said season.Personally, I'm glad it ended with them being together and at peace. They've been through too much pain along the way, maybe necessary pain, but this hurt is a part of why I really wanted exactly such an ending for them. The final scene, in which Patrick and Richie can both lean on each other and let go of their burden, is beautiful. Beyond my personal wishes, I simply have to applaud how masterfully the movie moves these two men, in love and in pain, towards each other, to the moment when they can be with each other, a climax of the romance without relinquishing Looking's overall commitment to telling this love story with a focus on dynamics, intimacy, honesty and communication, at how do two people know each other in this messed up world, how do they share themselves with each other and find their place together. It's this raw honesty that resonates so much and makes the couple's story so powerful. It's a testament to how right they are for each other, that at the end, Richie is the guy that Patrick seems to be most open, most honest and most himself with. Overall, I would highly recommend the show and the movie to anyone and the only thing I'm truly saddened by is how many people are missing out on this gorgeous work of art and love.

Just like the series, the movie was sheer crap. I'm from the east coast grown up in New York and New England. Having lived in San Francisco for 8 years and despite meeting very different people from all walks of life, some great, some rather shitty, and despite California being another world from anything even remotely like back east, I have NEVER encountered the sheer asinine catty talk that these characters portray to each other. I don't speak to people like that, I don't know anyone who talks to each other like that, and I would never tolerate it from anyone. The passive- aggressive douche bag attitude the way this series uninteresting characters portray is a complete turnoff. Attitude is cute when you're young but sad and pathetic when older and most people would find it unacceptable. I found none of the main characters interesting, memorable or even remotely likable. I did not relate to any of them.I get what Andrew Haigh was trying to do and the message of being honest he was trying to convey. I really do. Other than one episode in season 1 that caught my attention where guest star Julia Duffy brilliantly portrayed Patricks' mother, Looking was filled from beginning to end with badly written inconsistent story lines, two dimensional characters and unrealistic people. It didn't work in the series nor in the movie.I'm a huge fan of Daniel Franzese and Jonathan Groff, but sorry guys, there are better stories out there. You should get together with playwright J. Julian Christopher and producer D.R.Knott as these two people are brilliant and have written excellent material.Skip this. Queer As Folk or The L Word are way better.