Deleted Scenes

(3/10) Todd Verow’s film is the kind of experience that leaves me regretting my own memory. Every couple of months, I somehow forget who Verow is and what his track record looks like, watch another of his films, and then wish I had remembered before pressing play.

This one presents itself as 24 chapters, each framed as a supposedly deleted scene. A title card attributes the cuts to such reasons as length, denial, melodrama, believability, dubbing, and sexual content. That setup may be Verow’s comment on the recent wave of “found footage” movies, or it may simply be his own variation on the form.

At the center is Sean, a man in his thirties who meets Wolf, an immigrant from Eastern Europe. Their attraction is immediate, and the two return to Sean’s home, beginning an intense, sex-heavy relationship. What initially looks like a chance encounter slowly develops into something more significant. Wolf is relaxed and earns extra money turning tricks, whereas Sean is clingy, talkative, and emotionally tense. Any attempt to build a stable relationship between them is therefore difficult from the start.

Wolf repeatedly disappears, Sean begins taking drugs, and their relationship seems to be heading toward an outcome that will damage them both. The film’s explicitness is central to that deterioration. Yet, unlike straightforward pornography, the raw sexual material sometimes produces genuine emotional weight; the feelings between the characters can seem real rather than acted out. The bond between the two leads is often convincing and carries considerable force.

The performances are fine, but I never connected emotionally with either the film’s intentions or its construction. There will certainly be viewers who value it precisely in this form, and I understand what Verow is attempting. Still, the idea might have reached further through a more direct approach—and with substantially less explicit material.