Boulevard | Little White Lies

Boule­vard

10 Apr 2016 / Released: 08 Apr 2016

A smiling older man with grey hair and a white collared shirt.
A smiling older man with grey hair and a white collared shirt.
1

Anticipation.

Robin Williams’ final performance was always going to be a big draw.

2

Enjoyment.

And he doesn’t disappoint, even if the plot does.

2

In Retrospect.

Like its protagonist, this is an almost painfully shy and unrevealing film.

Robin Williams’ dour act­ing swan­song is an under­pow­ered dra­ma of sup­pressed sex­u­al frustration.

Boule­vard con­tains sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties to Mike Mills’ 2010 com­ing-out com­e­dy, Begin­ners. Both fea­ture pro­tag­o­nists who con­front their homo­sex­u­al­i­ty after decades trapped inside a het­ero­sex­u­al mar­riage. But where Christo­pher Plummer’s Hal embraced his new lifestyle with open arms, Boulevard’s Nolan Mack (Robin Williams) is too far gone. He’s so used to sup­press­ing every mys­te­ri­ous urge that he’s now too ter­ri­fied to con­front them. To him, sim­ply hold­ing anoth­er man’s hand is a thrilling affair.

Nolan is a six­tysome­thing sub­ur­ban bank clerk mov­ing through life in a daze. His down time is divid­ed between sit­ting at his the bed­side of his dying father, and with his sim­i­lar­ly but­toned-down wife, Joy (Kathy Bak­er). Then one night he almost runs over young street hus­tler Leo (Rober­to Aguire). The near-miss leaves him shak­en, yet sec­onds lat­er he is ner­vous­ly offer­ing Leo cash and dri­ving to a near­by hotel – not for sex, just to talk. It’s a jar­ring shift: has Nolan slowed down while pass­ing these streets in nights gone by?

Williams was a man known for his wide eyes and flail­ing limbs. As Nolan, the actor keeps it sim­ple and stripped back, strug­gling to hide his new pla­ton­ic rela­tion­ship from Joy. His hasti­ly assem­bled web of lies swift­ly col­laps­es under Joy’s gen­tle scruti­ny, his twitch­ing hands and hang­dog expres­sion speak vol­umes. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing study of repres­sion from both Williams and Bak­er; one that final­ly cli­max­es with an out­pour­ing of emo­tion and what is eas­i­ly the film’s most sat­is­fy­ing scene.

Sad­ly, the sequences spent with Leo are an exer­cise in frus­tra­tion. The refusal to allow Nolan even the tini­est indul­gence means the tryst sim­ply rat­tles along before com­ing to an abrupt halt. It doesn’t help that the night scenes feel so flat and slow. Chung-hoon Chung’s fram­ing and Jim­my Haun and David Whittman’s syn­thy score seem to evoke the mood­i­ness of Dri­ve of all things, but it’s the wrong fit for such a low-key char­ac­ter piece. Were it not for Williams’ per­for­mance, Boule­vard would be entire­ly for­get­table. It seems an unfair swan­song for such a trea­sured actor, but then noth­ing about his pass­ing seems par­tic­u­lar­ly fair.

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