Doing it missionary style. Review on Latter Days Movie

LATTER DAYS : MOVIE REVIEW

Tagline: Aaron prays. Christian plays... Opposites attract. Doing it Missionary style.

Aaron Davis (Steve Sandvoss) and Christian Markelli (Wes Ramsey) are the two most opposite people in the world. Aaron is a young Elder (or a Mormon missionary) who wants to do his family proud and is quite passionate about his religion. Christian is a shallow waiter/party boy who only looks forward to bedding a new guy every night. After Aaron and three other missionaries move into the apartment across from Christian, his friends bet him $50 that he can't get one of them to jump into the sack, so he instantly latches onto Aaron. There are two problems, though - Christian is falling in love with Aaron and the Mormons are not the biggest fans of the homosexual community. Once Aaron is discovered, the two have to go through trials of regret, loss, perseverance, and forgiveness if they both want to get to the thing that matters to them most: each other.

Well I just ripped that off an online summary of the movie to give a general layout of what I’m about to describe. I tend to rattle off into the horizon when started off on any topic so I figured the first paragraph above is for those of you who are faint-hearted. The rest of you dragon hearts, read on. Let the blood bath begin.

Actually too much of a hype is what I’m creating here. I don’t have too many brickbats for this movie. I actually happened to like it. Well one primary reason for the same is that I am gay after all so it was much of relief that a simple young age modern love story came along my way especially after watching Brokeback Mountain. Come on guys, being gay we have enough on our plates to handle that we don’t need a three hanky weepy movie to take us through the day. Agreed Latter Days also has its sad moments but after all “alls well that ends well”.

This movie is set in the current scenario of Los Angeles which is quite a bit similar to one of our metropolitan cities in India like Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore. More so for people living alone in these cities, those guys would be able to relate in a better fashion to this movie as the characters in the movie are also living away from their families. Half of the movie’s character i.e. Christian’s character is of any single, free-loading, party hopping character in our Metro cities.

Enter “Aaron Davis”: Imagine him as any guy coming from any small city, with a very orthodox and religious background. Aaron is a Christian Mormon missionary. More like a monk for us. Correction, he’s not yet a monk or a missionary. He’s still in training for the same. That’s why he and three other missionary-trainees are moved to an unknown city so that they can spread knowledge of their church. Basically going door to door, talking to people about their church, getting them to join the church etc. It’s a tough regime on these just-been teenagers. No drinking, smoking, playing sports as such, swearing, partying etc. Just studying the bible all the time, discussing the same amongst themselves; and then going out into the city distributing pamphlets and trying to convince hard believing Americans to join their party. Just once a week they get to maybe at the most play some sports etc and that’s about it. Tough huh?!?

Oh I forgot one of the biggest tough lucks in this thing, being gay is a sin for them. And so it conveniently turns out that one of the guys amongst them i.e. our very own Aaron Davis is gay. Cool huh.

Well as I said I tend to rattle, and in my rattle I forgot our other character Christian. He’s shown to be shallow. Hold it, I’d say carefree is a much better way to put it because after all I was once quite similar to him. Maybe I still am, hell knows. Anyways getting back to Christian, as I said he’s part of the frat pack. Works as a waiter in a restaurant called Lila (pronounced Lyla mind you) along with his roommate Julie. One thing that I found common between him and myself that he has no troubles and even no qualms about even seducing straight guys for his own need. No conscience, no guilt, no nothing. I kinda like that. (LMFAO). His daily schedule is something like this:

Early Morning: Spins Dance Class

After That : Working at Lyla’s restaurant, enjoying with his colleagues there, bitching           about the customers (the clientele as Lyla prefers to call them in the              &n
bsp; movie) and sometimes even picking up guys there.

After Work: Moving lock stock and barrel with friends to any nearby disc, where his            roommate Julie would perform (oh yeah I forgot to mention, she’s an              &n
bsp; aspiring singer). Drinking and dancing till the wee hours, then pick up              &n
bsp; some guy; take him home and a quick roll in the hay. It’s known in the              &n
bsp; movie as “Another episode of Christian hooks up”.

So overall a carefree, living in today kind of a self-loving guy with not a single care in the world about anything else.

And here the two main characters Christian and Aaron are brought together when Aaron and his missionary buddies move into the same apartment block as Christian. Christian tries to befriend them by gifting them beer but is really surprised and is unable to understand their lifestyle when they refuse. So Christian legs it over to work, discusses the whole situation with his colleagues and is immediately pulled into a bet (wow even Hollywood is taking inspirations from amchi Bollywood) to bed one of those missionaries because they’re supposed to be some kind of a tough forbidden fruit. 50 dollars on the go here. So Christian tries to befriend one of them and it has to be our munna Aaron who is suffering pangs of homesickness plus a hidden attraction towards Christian maybe. Christian and Julie (remember the singer roommate???), invite Aaron and one of his missionary buddies to come to their house and give them a talk about their church.

So now it’s an episode of Sunday church here with all about Judas and Christ and stuff being told here. Sorry I don’t remember the pravachan details here (no offense to any of my Christian readers here) but eventually it comes down to Christian asking about the Mormon church’s views on gay rights, and being told that its looked down upon as God hates homosexuals. Nearly time for some well required fight I think rubbing my hands together in glee but Aaron comes in between and diffuses the feud (hmmm party pooper, just when we were starting to have fun) . Anyways things go on, and there are more encounters between the two main characters, befriending each other over laundry, a spot of failed seduction attempt by Christian on Aaron but Aaron skirts the issue .

Aaron and Christian becoming friends over laundry.

Then comes a round of basketball game, some city roaming by the missionaries trying to sell their church to the people (please guys I didn’t mean that literally!!!), then Aaron running into Lyla (remember she’s Christian’s boss and also the owner of the restaurant he works in) outside a hospital going through a weak phase at the loss of a loved one, he gives her emotional support in exchange of which she asks him to come visit her to get free drinks, free food etc. Minor line here but this will figure later in the movie.

Continued in comments section