A Home at the End of the World movie review (2004)
Bobby is sweet. Everybody likes him. But does anybody know him? He has such a need to please, to reassure, to comfort, to heal, that it is hard to say what might comfort and heal him. We attend to this character more than to most, because we like him but find him a mystery.
His best friend is Jonathan (played as an adult by Dallas Roberts), an outsider in high school until Bobby befriends him, gives him pot for the first time and shares his dead brother's philosophy, which is basically that all is good, life is wonderful, so chill. Jonathan is clearly gay from an early age, and as the two boys share a bed, they eventually share a shy sexual experience. Jonathan moves to New York and Bobby eventually follows, joining a household that also includes Clare (Robin Wright Penn). She is older, experiments with bizarre hair-coloring strategies, embraces the unconventional and eventually embraces Bobby. He confesses he is a virgin and may not be "adept"; she calls him "junior" and takes charge.
So is Bobby actually straight? "Bobby's not gay," Jonathan muses. "It's hard to say what Bobby is." Hard, because Bobby is much less interested in sex than in helping other people to feel better. That's why the filmmakers were correct in their well-publicized decision to leave out Farrell's scene of full frontal nudity; the movie is not about the size or function of Bobby's penis, but about its friendliness. Consider his muted flirtation with Jonathan's mother, Alice (Sissy Spacek). He gives her pot, dances with her, turns her on to Laura Nyro, frees her to accept Jonathan's lifestyle and to wonder what directions her own life might have taken, if she had not been so conventional, suburban and married.
"A Home at the End of the World," directed by Michael Mayer, is based on a novel and screenplay by Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours. Once again he is fascinated by very particular kinds of unconventional households, by nontraditional family groups that do not even fall into the usual nontraditional categories. One might think Bobby, Jonathan and Clare were all gay, but no: Jonathan has an active homosexual life, but Clare is straight, and so concerned with remaining free that sex is approached warily. When she and Bobby have a daughter, their household makes a move toward a more conventional arrangement, and then backs off.
