★ 8 / 10
Evocative. sweet movie about finding love in a
R T
Evocative. sweet movie about finding love in a rough world. Kim Kold is a professional body builder with the soft, squishy spirit of a teddy bear, hence the…
Evocative. sweet movie about finding love in a rough world. Kim Kold is a professional body builder with the soft, squishy spirit of a teddy bear, hence the movie's name.
★ 7 / 10
Having travelled to Thailand many times for work
R T
Having travelled to Thailand many times for work, and lived in Denmark for a short time, and always had an interest in bodybuilding and bodybuilders, this film…
Having travelled to Thailand many times for work, and lived in Denmark for a short time, and always had an interest in bodybuilding and bodybuilders, this film seemed like a perfect storm for my attention: a 38-year-old man-child, an enormous blond bodybuilder, who looks for love in Thailand. In fact, that's just the decoration. The main story is well-worn, a monstrous, possessive mother who prevents their child from growing up. 'Don't leave me,' she says, more than once during the film. It is strange, the Thai travelogue and scenes of Pattaya and a setting where Western men come for sex and possibly to find wives: it's almost sociological. There is a slight moral judgement here, where Dennis seems to be a good person because he can't bring himself to have sex with a sex worker nor eventually to immediately make love to his love interest, and yet you could also see this as a sign of his lack of experience in the world. And his presence, his story, told with little articulation but more gesture and embodiment is really compelling: the contrast of the outside appearance of a man who is huge and square-jawed and masculine with a sad, withdrawn personality, lacking in confidence definitely drew me in to what is a fairly simple story. I liked it, I have to say. The main actor, his love interest and his mother, all of them, with weaker acting, could have left a viewer wanting more, but they all injected enough charisma and complexity that it was engaging.
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thank you Freeman!