Review by: Warren Curry
A dark, moody and moving drama. Allan Brocka's Roberta Loved is
a powerful film that manages to evoke more grounded emotion in 25 minutes than most movies
can accomplish in 2 hours. The work's power comes from a place of honesty, and the
characters are confidently left bare allowing the audience to view them in an intensely
raw state.
Roberta (Vickie Rabjohn) is a 350-pound secretary who one day is
laid off from her job. While walking home the woman collapses, and quickly finds herself
lying in bed strapped to an I.V. Roberta has been diagnosed with cancer and convinces her
doctor to lend her help in permanently ending her misery. So sad is Roberta's life that
when she calls her mother, who lives in a nursing home, the older woman isn't willing or
able to acknowledge the existence of this person as her child.
The night before her planned death, Roberta seeks to fulfill one
final desire. She responds to an ad for a male escort and is subsequently visited by Kevin
(Christopher Bradley). Kevin has a wealth of his own personal baggage, including routine
physical abuse from his boyfriend. The alienated individuals seem pre-destined to be
linked in this one final desperate encounter.
Brocka never resorts to insincere narrative devices to make his
characters more appealing. He bravely lets them sink or swim on their own merits. The film
intercuts Roberta and Kevin's stories, which makes each of their respective pain more
immediate. The characters aren't constructed in a traditional sense to elicit sympathy.
They are simply despondent individuals, and the audience can view them as they see fit.
The young director's bold approach and absolute command of his material is exceedingly
impressive.
Roberta Loved is the kind of work that makes you feel without
forcing itself on you. Brocka knows his characters well enough to give them their own
space, and the payoff is enormous. A rich, rewarding work that indicates the emergence of
a unique filmmaking talent -- please take note.
from The New York Gay and
Lesbian Film Festival
"This dark bittersweet drama focuses on Roberta, a 350-lb secretary who loses her
job and learns she is dying on the same day. On her last day alive, she develops an
unusual relationship with Kevin, a bisexual hustler specializing in "freaks."
Roberta Loved is unconventional, disturbing, and wonderful."
from TORONTO'S FAB MAGAZINE
"DEAR JOHN is a collection of five short films dealing with hustlers and they make
a hustling seem boring, which, perhaps, is the point. But the fourth film, ROBERTA LOVED,
is a small masterpiece. First of all, it features the jaw-dropping sight of a john who
wears a backwards female mask and draws tits on his shoulder blades so when he bends over,
his hustler will think he's a woman. But the main sotry concerns a big fat mess of a
woman who turns 50, is fired from her job and gets cancer all at the same time. She
opts for assisted suicide, but before doing so, she decides to blow some money on a stud.
What happens between her and the hustler is unexpected, funny, and heartfelt, a
night more tumultuous than the rest of her entire life and by the end, I was a sobbing
mess myself. At one point, as he tenderly cuddles her, she tells him that she
collects owl figurines and that she's masturbated with every single one of them.
It's a real achievement and my other most favourinte movie in the festival."
- Paul Bellini - Fab Magazine, Toronto
(4 1/2 stars)