Harry and Max, directed by Christopher Munch, focuses on the difficulty of sustaining some gay relationships. Harry (played by Bryce Johnson), a twenty-three-year-old has-been rock star, has flown from New York to Los Angeles to be with his sixteen-year-old brother Max (played by Cole Williams) in the early spring for a long-deferred camping trip. Having just produced a hit music album, Max's career looks promising; he already has a flattering bio in a teen magazine. Harry, who has music engagements in Japan for the summer, has recently become addicted to alcohol. Nearly ten years earlier, the sight of Harry's hard anatomy secretly excited Max. The two presumably had sex for the first sometime after Max reached puberty, and their last sexual experience was about two years ago on vacation in Bermuda. As boys, they provided emotional support to each other before Harry's career took off a few years earlier, when he left for New York. Saddened because his relationship with a Roxanne in New York is on the wane, Harry arrives in LA with a hidden agenda--to establish a solid lover relationship with Max on the rebound. Soon after he returns to LA, the two go trekking in the mountains. During the trip Max makes a sexual advance that Harry tolerates, but the latter is cautious, not admitting that he wants a more serious commitment from playful Max until he ascertains more about his younger brother's current love life. In time, Harry learns that his former girlfriend, Nikki (played by Rain Phoenix), is now a very good friend of Max. After the trip, he also finds that Max for a six-month period had a very masculine boyfriend, fortysomething Josiah (played by Tom Gilroy), whose onetime departure from LA on business ended the relationship. The one closest to Max is their mother (played by Michelle Phillips), who is managing Max's career. Accordingly, as Harry tries to stop all three from having any control over Max, the latter resents his efforts to meddle, so Harry fails to accomplish his objective. Harry even infuriates Nikki, who reacts strongly to his admission about an incestuous relationship with his younger brother. In the scene captioned "Two Years Later," Max is in New York, has a devoted lover about his own age, his career is still rising, and he is attending college, presumably Columbia University. Harry has just flown from Japan, where he is still popular enough to earn money on tour, to have a showdown with Max in New York. Although the ending plays out predictably, the film fails to hint that teen star Max is also likely to have a career nosedive as he gets older, and the soap opera will breathe new life. MH
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