BUDDY BOY

US, 1999, 105 minutes, Colour.
Aidan Gillen,Emmanuelle Seigner, Susan Tyrrell, Mark Boone Jr.
Directed by Mark Hanlon.

Buddy Boy is a very strange film about a strange character. A young man, introverted, mentally unstable, lives with his dominating mother. He compensates by a kind of Rear Window peeping tom life. One of the people he spies on is played by Roman Polanski’s wife, Emmannuelle Seigner – which reminds audiences familiar with Polanski’s film of The Tenant.

The young man descends into madness, imagining all kinds of bizarre things about the people he spies on. All the time, he is in conflict with his mother.

The film is disturbing, a portrait of incipient madness and the final collapse of sanity.

1.The impact on the audience, drama, madness? Themes and characters?

2.The city, the apartments, the streets, windows, city life, workplaces? The musical score?

3.The Catholic iconography, the Sacred Heart, confession, the priest, talk of God’s love? Hatred and punishment? Francis and his mother in this context?

4.The title, its reference to Francis, Sal and her attitude towards her son?

5.The focus on Francis, his age, experience, the influence of his father, the presence of his mother, dependence on her, her care? Her slovenly behaviour? The influence of Vic? Francis’s suspicion of people? The photo, the loner? His observing people, photos, the peephole? Imagining bizarre aspects of the people he watches, the meat, the men, Gloria and her eating vegetables and his imagining meat? The room and the model of the ship? Saving the girl, friendship, visits, the meals of the vegan, spying, despite friendship? Phone calls, the growing imagination, going out, few friends, the faith talk – and its later influence? His mother’s seizures?

6.His mother’s personality, presence in the house, domination of her son, slovenly, her laughter? Vic and company? Francis ousting him, his return? Sal and the killing, the bath, the odour?

7.Francis getting madder, the party and his upset, helping Gloria, listening? The kind of help?

8.The portrait of an enclosed world, Gloria and her being part of this, Sal and her fostering it, Vic and his brutality? The contrast with the ordinary world of the shop, the customers, the customers running away?

9.The enigma of the ending?