Touches You

Fantastic!

A lot of fun.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Eric Poole (Jon Foster), a young man who killed his parents when he was a teen is released from prison when he turns 18 (and after court evidence that proves that hard anti-depressives were the main cause for his acts). Out of there, and with good plans to rebuilt his life and go to college, he travels to meet a girl (Alexis Dziena) he knew while he was in custody. On his track there's the detective (Russell Crowe) who caught him and doesn't trust that this kid will not kill again. The third character in the story is a teenage girl (Sophie Traub) obsessed by this killer and she joins him on this trip where things can go really bad when his instincts seems to rise again. The somewhat promising "Tenderness" is a huge disappointment not in the way it presents its story - a quite good slow pace, tense, very mysterious and filled with some unpredictable things - but in the way it puts the elements altogether forcing situations, several things in which we can't trust or believe (and that's very strange considering the realistic approach given by the film). Sorry, but I'm gonna have to give some details and point out what bothered me here: What kind of juvenile facility would allow that sudden entrance of a girl into a men's dorm? Later we find out who she is and how she connects with the other characters. Horrible entrance for a character and an even worst departure when Eric's stalker reveals the other girl's real purposes (a ridiculous and unbelievable scene where the stalker sees Eric and the girl from a distance impossible to see anything way up high on a moving roller-coaster). There's more implausible moments and annoying parts, and countless things to be explained. I mean, all the girl wanted was to be Eric's girlfriend or she wanted to be one of his victims? I couldn't get this scenario and didn't like the ending. Prejudicial to the film was having Russell Crowe acting and behaving like a walking zombie appearing in a heavy clichéd role as the detective who not only wants to track down the young killer but also has to deal with a sick wife in the hospital. The young cast saves the film, specially Foster, who has the quiet attitude to play this tormented character.Merely pretentious and trying to show some intelligence where there isn't, "Tenderness" is not a good film and it doesn't deserve half the attention it might get. 4/10

"Tenderness" is a film that falls into the category of movies that could have been good but ultimately fail to deliver. It's a psychological drama that invites us to enter the minds and motives of three disparate souls who all seem to be reaching for something they are not sure how to obtain. So far, so good, especially with Russell Crowe in the cast. But the movie seems to meander, never really drawing us in as much as is we'd like. The main portion of the film is a road trip, pairing the main character - a teen recently released from a juvenile correctional facility after murdering his parents - with a young female admirer who alternates between annoying and creepy. They are surreptitiously followed by Crowe, the semi-retired cop who originally put the boy away. Crowe is certain the boy's trail of murder includes more than his parents, and that he will kill again. We watch the whole thing unfold, waiting for something meaningful to happen, but by the time the credits roll, we're left wondering why we cared in the first place.

I love Russell Crowe. The guy who plays Eric is pretty cute and a good actor. So, one star for each of them: but, even Oscar-winner Russell Crowe couldn't save this one.The supposed chemistry between Lori & Eric just didn't work for me. The sub-plot with the Detective and his wife wasn't fleshed out enough to make me care.On the plus side, The cinematography was gorgeous and the cast definitely can act. However, the pace is PAINFULLY slow for a thriller. And (no spoilers) the ending was a bit anti-climatic.I just kept wishing it would end which, gladly, it finally did.

The faceplate review of this film is excellent. It's an indie, slow moving, full of tristesse and dysfunctional people. The underlying theme song might have been the Beatle's classic, "Strawberry Fields," with its haunting theme, "Nothing is real..." Russell Crowe, a much better actor than most people are willing to give him credit for gives a superb but fleeting performance, coming in and out of the action created by the two focal characters, the pathological Eric, played by handsome, boy-next-door type Jon Foster and the suicidal nymphet Lori, played the young Canadian Sophie, whose ambiguous nubile sexuality adds an amazing texture to the story. The story itself is a trip through purgatory with injured, wounded souls seemingly coming out of the woodwork. A brief encounter with the wonderful Laura Dern as the cautious and aware Aunt Sophie adds to the movement of the story. This is excellent film-making and it will stay with me for a long time, albeit I can't say for a moment that I enjoyed watching it. However, it is a reminder that some things are worth more being experienced rather than merely enjoyed. We're left with the question, "are there really people out there like these wounded, dysfunctional souls?" And, the only answer we can come up with is "Perhaps." But, the greater lesson is that not all of us fit nicely into the social order. And, isn't that what purgatory's all about?