The film’s intellectual aspirations are evident (the dialogue is peppered with Foucault and Shakespeare), but not oppressively so, and the actors perform with an ease that smoothes the story’s episodic structure. Over the course of one long, rainy night in a labyrinthine apartment building, the hustler will play a long-lost friend, a reminder of spent youth and a dangerous liaison, each successive encounter nudging him toward self-examination.
The statement may or may not be true, but it helps fabricate the persona of the moment: what makes this particular young man desirable - aside from a guileless face, a knowing body and a sweet disposition - is the facility to morph into whomever his customer most desires.
“I like adventure,” says the boyish gay hustler (Ben Bonenfant) at the heart of “Strapped,” Joseph Graham’s dreamlike debut feature.
