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Looking: The Movie Review

Looking: The Movie is a 2016 film that acts as the finale of the Looking HBO show. It’s a very good, if overly happy conclusion.

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“I’ve become everything I’ve rallied against for years very strongly“

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Unfortunately for fans, HBO decided to quit this show due to poor ratings for its second season, even if the first season was well viewed. The result was this movie at the request of fans to see the ending for all characters and the film certainly gave everybody that closure that we needed to see.

First and foremost, as a real movie, it only succeeds in some capacity. It’s not very big in scope, but it does benefit from some excellent soundtrack cues in the emotional scenes while the beginning and ending are both wonderful and quite cinematic. The rest of the film is your usual Looking stuff, which are prolonged conversations between its characters, and those I love, so I liked the film quite a bit.

Agustin and Eddie are getting married in this story, so Patrick comes back from Denver after eleven months to attend their wedding with everybody else there too. Yes, Agustin getting married all of a sudden was difficult to believe, especially because he is the last person who you would think of getting married, but the writers touched on that in that very strong scene on the hills where he tells Patrick how hypocritical and odd all of this is for him. But Eddie and him work and they are happy together, so ultimately it was a fine decision and a good catalyst to bring them all together again.

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Dom is sidelined here quite a bit. Apparently, he’s not into relationships now, which is dramatized in his argument with Doris about it, but overall he seemed happy, though clearly very rushed as we did not get to see enough of him here sadly. That scene where Patrick and him kissed was awkward and interesting for sure. Doris is thinking of getting a baby and her accepting her heterosexual lifestyle was hilarious.

But let’s talk about Patrick as this movie is all about him. They explored so well how he runs away from all problems as quickly as possible in that truly painful meeting with Kevin that went all wrong and all very sad. We got to see Kevin’s side of things and it led to a very complicated, again very touching sequence that really worked. It made him question whether or not he should have left him.

Seeing Patrick all broken up and simply lost was difficult. This is why his eventual reconciliation with Richie to me was mostly welcome as I wanted him to find happiness, but obviously it was very unrealistic and the movie turned to a fairy tale in its final scenes. Though wonderful, it was too hard to buy unfortunately.

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Still, the confrontation with Brady was very memorable and all sorts of messy, and it was a good excuse for the two to get back together. That final scene was very sweet. I liked everybody getting back together, the passage of time was well explored and the movie’s exploration of living in a different city and starting your life anew was very interesting.