The film also does commendably well in exploring a character, Neil, who is not really adversely affected by the ‘abuse,’ because we see the character beforehand, and he is clearly a borderline sociopath to begin with. This is another aspect of the film that deserves praise, for the percentage of people who are able to move on with their lives despite neglect or abuse — sexual, physical, mental, emotional, etc. — clearly dwarfs those who are forever stunted. Even Brian, by film’s end, is clearly set to accept his past and move on to the future. As for Neil, Coach’s affections just push him more clearly in the direction he likely would have ended up going anyway. However, Araki again errs, and gilds his lily with phoniness, when we hear, in voiceover early on, Neil claiming that, at eight years old, he had his first gism-laden ejaculation watching his mother fellate a boyfriend. Biologically speaking, this is impossible, and again reveals a bit too much of the filmmaker’s deviance from sexual reality, at the cost to his art (a considerable cost given that the film had great potential).
There are some great moments, though, such as a scene where an old Vermeer-loving john (Billy Drago) asks not for sex, but for a massage on his body ravaged with AIDS sores. The man gets off from mere human touch. It almost makes up for the unintentionally hilarious scene where another john, a young buff one, literally rips Neil’s clothes off, French kisses him, and quickly asks for Neil to do him up the ass with his hot teenaged cock. Another scene that clunks is a too precious one of Neil and Wendy, at night, at a deserted old drive-in movie theater, speaking too poetically of their lives and God, only to have snow start falling on cue.
Earlier in the film, we see that some of the violence Neil experiences may be payback for abuse he handed out to others, such as, when he was ten, on Halloween, when a retard whom he forced to have bottle rockets shoot out of his mouth is injured, and so, to keep the dim boy from tattling, Neil first handjobs, then fellates him. That same night, Brian has a second encounter with Coach, whom he later blocks out and assumes was an alien. There’s also an odd, early scene, where, despite the film’s almost fetishistic subjective point of view shots (used most often for the little boys, to have them react to material other than the portrayed abuse at hand), Brian, as well as his mother and sister, seem to really see a UFO flying over their home as they watch from their rooftop. Whether this is just Brian’s fantasy or indicative that Araki believes there is some truth to the UFO abduction phenomenon is unclear, but it is filled with the essence of childhood wonder, and, in the context of this film, adds a believable and needed breather to all the ‘heavy’ stuff going on.
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