Buddy Boy (2000)

I know there are not many votes on this film but if there were it certainly would have a higher rating then a 6.0. The acting is excellent all the way around, the numerous plot twists and turns keep the viewer enthralled from beginning to end, and it leaves one with many questions to ponder afterward.As Francis' (Aidan Gillen) emotions begin to unravel it will blow your mind into the unavailing that comes about in the end. If you are a simple minded individual that enjoy movies for the loud explosions and eye candy this one may not be for you. This is in a class of maybe about a dozen movies that I couldn't get out of my head for days after viewing (Requiem for a Dream, Mysterious Skin, There Will Be Blood, American History X, The Machinist, The Wrestler, The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile, The Prestige, Unbreakable, Revolutionary Road, Amores Perros, Happiness) Also Emmanuelle Sieigner may have the sexiest voice/accent that I have ever heard. She's a real babe in this one.Highly Recommended: 9.5/10

Having just finished seeing this film I came to the message boards for answers, and only found others seeking the same thing. A vivid hallucinatory dream can feel like reality, with the imagery powerful, but undecipherable even to the dreamer. I conclude that this film was of this genre, a nightmare made into a public event, a film to be seen by all who can take it. Given the genre, given that it is valuable for someone to be into someone else's nightmare rather than their own, it is an admirable work of art. We go wrong when we ask for real world logic, where the bodies of large dead men do not disappear, and may not be taken away piece by piece on a bus. Dreams follow no such logic. They are there to allow a reconfiguration of reality into some kind of a resolution.The central riveting element for me was Francis' love affair with Gloria. She was luscious, kind, accepting, admiring and always there for him. (If that's not a clue that this is a dream fantasy, then what is?) His sexual pleasure was best when at a distance, through a telescope, only to be made flesh onto flesh with fear and reluctance on his part.There is a great word "verisimilitude" that describes the degree that a dramatic presentation approximates reality. It is usually considered a necessity, even though each work is allowed a degree of poetic license to vary from this for the purposes of dramatic effect."Buddy Boy," gets zero on the verisimilitude scale of actual life, as Francis is right not to believe that a girl like Gloria could actually love him. But this scale of realism has a different set of rules in nightmare films such as this. The only reality that must be sustained is emotional engagement, a working out of some unknown outside existence through the flashes of imagery that both intrude upon and advance the dream work.Francis, whoever he is when awake, is a suffering human being forsaken by God, family and the world around him. He also has come to believe that Jesus, whom he says gave his life for love of humanity, actually despises him. It is a world of kidnapped children whom he can not save, and vegans who kill and eat human beings.And yet, in the midst of all of this horror, he found someone to love him. No wonder he is reluctant to wake up.

1st watched 4/5/2007 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Mark Hanlon): Disturbing and fascinating story of a recluse who does nothing except take care of his ailing step mother until he meets his next door neighbor who he happens to be peeping at thru a hole in his basement on a daily basis. The peeping continues despite the fact that she falls in love with him and they spend many evenings together. She openly confesses to being a vegan, but Francis(the recluse) starts seeing things thru his peep hole that makes him think otherwise. Francis's life has been mixed up for awhile. His real mom&dad are dead -- his step mom is crazy & crippled, he lives a mundane life where he goes to work on the same bus everyday and doesn't really interact with people and knows very little about women until his next door neighbor comes along and disrupts his simple boring life. There is also a religious aspect to his life that does nothing but confuse him and gives him somewhere to confess his sins, but does nothing to help him in real life. Despite this, everything is going along OK until his step mom accidentally kills his boyfriend and Francis suspects his neighbor is killing men in her apartment and having a little snacky-poo from the remains(which is technically not being a vegan). OK, now that I've said this much, I still hope you will see this well done independent movie. It's compelling, creepy and a nice study on human existence for a few mixed up people.

Buddy Boy is a psychological thriller on the same scale of Roman Polanski movies. While seeing Buddy Boy it immediately reminded me of a particular Polanski movie, The Tenant. Both stories deal with men looking abroad to the windows of others and noticing bizarre happenings. Thus causes the men to slowly go insane and therefore indulge themselves within their own insanity. The story deals with a stuttering young man who is very reclusive and lives with his stepmother. He spends most of the time locked in his room. A perverse pass time of his is to look inside the apartment of a beautiful woman, played by Polanski’s wife, Emmanuelle Seigner. He falls in love with the woman’s image without knowing her. As the story develops they eventually meet and become friends. The young man continues to spy on the woman due to his lack of trust in her. As he peeps into the woman’s apartment, he begins to notice that she cooks human flesh and eats it raw. He goes over the woman’s apartment, only to discover that she is eating vegetables, I forgot to mention the woman is a vegetarian. The young man begins to think God hates him for making him see terrible things. Apparently the only time he sees the acts of cannibalism is when he is at his Peeping Tom area. This is the beginning of one man’s decent into madness.I expected to see a particular type of stylish psychological film, instead I witnessed something more disturbing than what I usually see. Nevertheless it was an interesting movie. The style is ugly, its not elegant it’s simply ugly. So far I have not learned to like this particular style, I prefer something more elegant, meaning I dislike movies that take place in the rural areas of a metropolitan city. Despite the settings I thought the film was decent. It’s definitely a change of pace horror film instead of watching the typical teenage slasher Hollywood flicks. Which I don’t see but I’m sure they are terrible. Buddy Boy is a film that allows you to have your own conclusion, it doesn’t give you the ending, you create it yourself by what you saw from the flick.