Being at Home with Claude

Adapted from René-Daniel Dubois' controversial stage hit, this is everything Gregg Araki's The Living End was hyped up to be, but fell sorely short of. Queer criminality meets aching romanticism in a daring, moving illustration of Wilde's maxim 'each man kills the thing he loves'. Opening with an explosive sequence in which a man is literally fucked to death, the mystery of the film is not whodunit, but why. A hustler (Dupuis) confesses to the murder, but the law, in the shape of a nameless police inspector (Godin) requires a motive. What follows is an extended dialogue between a gay outlaw and the voice of a shocked society. The prospect of 85 minutes in the company of two characters enclosed in a single set might not sound like such a thrilling ride, but there's more drama to be found contained in these four walls than on the run through all Araki's wide-angle landscapes. The lead performances are superb, Beaudin's direction is tighter than a rent boy's vest, and if the opening scene doesn't leaving you gasping, you're probably already dead. PBur.