When I first heard the title of this film I thought it was referring to geography, but it could be, given the poetic nature to this film, also referring to a subjective regard of time.

This is an excellent and identifiable film for those who feel they live in between blurred lines. If that appeals to you in any way, please do read on…

The character of Bobby is so simple and easy to get along with, that many in the film can’t help but love him to bits. But as a construct of his uncomplicated nature, Bobby appears to pay no mind to the categorical lines set up to ensure familiar comfort by society, and many struggle to accompany him in his effortless blurring of such lines. This is often brought up through Bobby’s repetition of the line “it’s just love”, and is also demonstrated by his viewing of his best friend’s mother not as someone of that title, but rather just another lonely soul in the world, which has quite an effect on her.

I suppose all this leads our protagonist Bobby to developing an unconventional family in the form of two men and a woman with a child, not seeing any reason why family can’t be whatever we want it to be. And there is love between all of them. For defining Bobby’s sexual orientation seems to be completely unimportant to him, and hence unplaceable for those around him, as made clear in a scene at a disco, wherein Bobby is dancing freely, and Clare (above) says “Bobby is adorable! … Why are all the good ones gay?” to which Jonathan (also above), Bobby’s boyhood friend, responds: “Bobby’s not gay – well – it’s hard to say exactly what Bobby is.”

A home at the end of the world has a certain type of sublime existential element to it as well. Bobby’s older brother dies in a freak-accident when Bobby is still a boy; his mother follows – from who knows what; and Bobby’s father passes away when he is a teenager. His hang out spot growing up is the graveyard. When he first brings his friend Jonathan there, he says “don’t be freaked out about the graveyard. The dead are just people who wanted the same things we want.” Later in the film, upon Jonathan’s going to the fridge in the middle of the night, getting unintentionally scared by Bobby just standing there in the shadows, and asking Bobby what he’s doing, Bobby responds: “When the place is all dark, when you and Clare have gone to sleep, and I’m awake, it’s like being alive and being dead at the same time, you know? It’s this sort of halfway thing, where people who are alive are dreaming, and people who are dead are… where they are. And I’m here… in the dark and the quiet.”

The film goes further into these themes related to our existence in this place and time, but I believe the above quotes give you some idea of what to expect. This really is a nostalgia trip of a film, with its fantastic soundtrack corresponding to the year of 1967 onwards in which the story is set, and though it is thought provoking at points, and leaves you perhaps with a bit of a yearning heart, I would not say it is glum or anything along those lines.

Feel free to leave your thoughts below in the comments, if you’d like to, about this film that I really highly recommend if any of the above takes your fancy.