The
sexual age of consent in most states of the United States
is eighteen. Sex with someone below the age of consent is
considered statutory rape. What happens when a fifteen-year-old
boy truly loves a man nearly twice his age? In Eban
and Charley, writer-director James Bolton sensitively
focuses on both sides of such a relationship. Twenty-nine-year-old
Eban (played by Brent Fellows) is a Seattle schoolteacher
who craves "chicken," that is, underage boys. Previously,
he had a relationship with a teenage member of the soccer
team at the high school where he taught, but he was fired
and had to end the relationship when authorities found out.
Luckily, he was not jailed, so he heads home for Christmas
with his elderly parents in Oregon. Although his mother seems
supportive, his father is distant. Meanwhile, fifteen-year-old
Charley (played by Giovanni Andrade) lives with his stepparents,
since his birthmother died; although he has an inheritance,
his stepfather will not let him have the money and even refuses
to buy him new shoes when they are stolen at school. By chance,
Eban and Charley meet in town, hang out, end up in the sack
together, and fall in love, with Charley considerably more
desperate for affection. When both sets of fathers find out
about their intimacy, they demand an end to the relationship.
Charley then begs Eban to go away together; after Eban ponders
the options for a day or so, he agrees. At the end of the
film they are on a train bound for Seattle, eloping together.
(Filmviewers expecting a tragic double suicide, a not uncommon
outcome in real life, are thus relieved.) But since the law
will still disallow the relationship, and neither has a job,
the film ends without a clue how the two will survive, thus
tantalizing filmviewers to expect a sequel, but doubtless
a story in which Charley grows up and no longer needs Eban,
who will then suffer a severe trauma to his co-dependent personality.
Similar to L.I.E., a
film that focused on love-starved teenagers driven to have
sex with older men, Eban and Charley come from homes where
parents are distant from their sons. Whereas Charley wants
a father figure to help him cope with his gay tendencies,
Eban evidently seeks a younger boy to provide the love that
he missed when he was a teenager. An interesting twist to
the plot is that a young boy and a young girl, both friends
of Charley and children of abusive or indifferent parents,
decide to elope before Eban and Charley do so. The message
that the behavior of children is a function of the behavior
of parents is perhaps even more profound than two simple questions
explicitly posed in the Eban and Charley. Why
does age matter? What rights does a fifteen-year-old have
to choose a life of love? MH
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