Bovie Movie

Directed by Michael Mayer and based on The Hours author Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name, A Home at the End of the World chronicles the 1980s reunion of childhood best friends Bobby (Colin Farrell) and Jonathan (Dallas Roberts). Where they were once best pals — and teenage lovers — in the suburbs of Cleveland, Bobby has become a charismatic but go-nowhere heterosexual slacker, and Jonathan is now living as an openly gay man in New York City, hoping to serve as father to his eccentric roommate Clare’s (Robin Wright Penn) child. When Bobby impulsively moves to the city to be closer to his former friend, their bonds are tested sooner than anyone would have thought. Bobby falls for Clare, and in doing so, effectively eliminates what would have been Jonathan’s position in the baby’s life. Jonathan temporarily takes off; when his father dies, and he attends the Arizona funeral, Bobby and Clare unexpectedly turn up with the news that she’s expecting. Despite the still-existent tensions, the trio becomes a family unit among themselves, ultimately buying a house in Woodstock, Upstate New York, where they all move together, challenging traditional notions of family, commitment, love, and devotion.

Australian filmmaker known for such classics as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Six Degrees of Separation, Fred Schepisi tells this story about a group of lifelong chums coming to terms with their friend’s death, based on a prize-winning novel by Graham Swift. When Jack Dodd (Michael Caine) passes on, his three best buddies (Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, and David Hemmings) along with his son (Ray Winstone) carry out his last wish — to have his ashes cast off the pier of the seaside town of Margate, where he and his beloved wife honeymooned and where he hoped to retire. As the group venture to the coast in a large black Mercedes, they reminisce about their younger, wilder days. Eventually, they end up in a pub where, in a haze of beer and tears, secrets are unveiled. Meanwhile, Jack’s wife, Amy (Helen Mirren), visits the mentally disabled daughter that Jack refused to acknowledge. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.