Watercolors

The writing is lazy at times, but convincing performances by Tye Olson and Kyle Clare in the central roles elevate David Oliveras’s “Watercolors” above run-of-the-mill gay cinema. This modest movie, with a side plot that looks unblinkingly at gay-bashing among high school students, deserves to attract crossover customers.
Mr. Olson plays Danny, a gay high school student with potential as an artist. As the film opens, the adult Danny (Ian Rhodes) is enjoying the opening of his first New York show, which is full of images of an Adonis-like swimmer. The bulk of the film is an extended flashback in which we see Danny’s high school romance with this swimmer, Carter (Mr. Clare), an opposites-attract relationship that was made all the more difficult by homophobic harassment from other members of the swim team.
Mr. Oliveras, who wrote the film, settles for boilerplate dialogue and thinly drawn characters at times (especially Carter’s father, who seems unrealistically indifferent and callous toward his son). But elsewhere he shows a deft touch, especially in a scene just after Danny has been beaten up by the school bullies. In a beautifully understated moment, the bruised boy tells his mother (Casey Kramer) about the beating and the reason for it, and she responds the way a good mother should, putting aside her shock in favor of support.
“Watercolors” is part of a triple bill at the Quad Cinema — 34 West 13th Street in Greenwich Village — with “Misconceptions” and "Murder in Fashion."
Da The New York Times, 22 gennaio 2010