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The Books of John

This is an apt case of a novel concept going horribly wrong for various reasons. Execution, acting, message conveyed.. just about everything. Plus the film was probably made on a very small scale and it could be seen.

Among various sub plots, the main story is about Frank who loses his partner of 12 years John. After his death he realizes that John had been writing diaries ever since he was a kid. He starts reading the diary and decides to o and visit John's birth place to see if he can trace his roots. But no one there knows about John. Frank ends up meeting a guy called Trevor who lives with his grandmother in the small town since his parents are dead and they instantly get attracted to each other. Trevor offers help and says he will ask his grandmother who eventually also says she knows nothing. Time goes on . Frank and Trevor are getting more involved with each other and in the same time Frank is discovering things about John which he did not know including the fact that he had a girlfriend when he was 16 years old whom he had sex with and who shared same name as Trevor's mom. After a series of events, it turns out that Trevor is John's son from his girlfriend who got accidentally pregnant and John had no idea about that. The grandma eventually tells Trevor all the details. We also have sub plots of Rob and his boyfriend , the careless party going young men who dont get serious in life until Rob finds out that he is HIV positive. We also get to see stories of couple of lesbians and how their life intertwine.

So like I said, the movie could have been better but the execution was really bad. Acting was pathetic and over dramatic. The only decent person I thought was Jen who was Frank's lesbian friend. Apart from that no where you feel connected to the characters. he director tries to portray some stereotypes including lesbians moving with each other after first date.

Easily avoidable. Watch if you have nothing better to do. Its not that bad. (4/10)

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