Chris & Don tells the story of a romance that began on the beaches of Santa Monica in the 1950s, when Christopher Isherwood at age 48 met Don Bachardy who then was eighteen years old. Isherwood, an established author with works such as The Berlin Stories, which helped inspire much of Cabaret, helped Bachardy discover and develop his affinity for drawing and painting as he became a renowned portrait painter during the second half of the 20th century to the present. The film, told through Don, chronicles how they met, their move from Europe to USA, what was their life like and how the love grew between them.
The 30-year difference between an upper-crust British writer and a young Californian glamour-hound was just one of the difficulties facing the pair in the 1950s, yet the strength of their love through the ups and downs of a relationship that blossomed for three decades was what kept them together up to Isherwood’s death in 1986, and what makes Chris & Don: A Love Story one of the most positive, affecting portrayals of queer romance in recent memory. You see genuine romantic longing between the two men while Don revisiting his love for the man of his life. Not everything was roses for them. Don recounts the days when he almost left Chris but came to sense and how Chris has always been a lover, mentor and his love all throughout his life. Using the video archival footage of their earlier days is a masterstroke in creating this documentary and it makes it very relatable. Isherwood and Bachardy's story features cameos by a galaxy of literary and cinema stars. The film ends on a poignant note where Don displays the final drawings he made of Isherwood, sketched immediately after his death from cancer, before his body was removed from the house.
I doubt we will find love stories like this in today's time. As much as anyone who has ever been in love, Don carries Isherwood in every aspect of his being, just as he always has and always will. (6//10)
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