Jason Bradbury | My Sweet Prince / 2019

the hook-up

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jason Bradbury (screenwriter and director) My Sweet Prince / 2019 [12 minutes]

 

15-year-old Tommy (Yoni Roodner) is in love with best friend’s friend, but in the many videos and real-time scenes that entail his and his friends (Jacob Avery, Rio Thake, Oliver Bickers and their girls, Sophie Oliver and Aoife Checkland) British boy and girl hooliganism and drug parties, Tommy sits alone watching the boy of his dreams make out with the girls. He’s furious for his own infatuation, and for the frustration of not having any of his feelings returned.

    But this is 2003, a time as British director Jason Bradbury reminds us of alcopops (a sweet mixed alcoholic drink that is made to imitate a soft drink), VHS tapes (many of which we are shown), endless cigarettes, boys, MSN Messenger, and Placebo. When his mother isn’t around, Tommy escapes to his computer in an attempt to hook up with a figure whose moniker is “My Sweet Prince.”

     Yet the computer, sitting in an open hall of the house, certainly doesn’t provide him much privacy to discover his gay identity, let alone to live out his fantasies in mutual masturbation. Interrupted again by his mother, evidently a hospital worker, he makes an appointment for 1:00 to meet on line.

     Sneaking back to the computer late at night, he has to cover the connecting noisy link up with a pillow so his mother might not hear the phone rings and clunky hookup noises. But finally, the image of a young boy, looking to be about his age, appears on the screen. “Can you see me?” Tommy asks, looking up to see his Sweet Prince (Harry Saward) at the very same moment. We are sure these boys will get on just fine.

 

Los Angeles, December 18, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).