BILLYBOY-10 Sweet, young, juicy, barely legal teen-bait Paul turns piano sheet music pages for his concert pianist idol who is almost 40 and pasty. Paul stalks him, goes to his hotel and then innocently takes his clothes off and lies on his bed to be massaged and seduced. After a few days of romps in the hay, the pianist dumps the kid and splits. Fast forward where the kid is now humping it up with some other way older guy who Paul knows can further his musical career and then soon is innocently (again?) seduced by the boyfriend/manager/whatever of the first seducer pianist cause he too can open doors for his musical career. Then Paul finds out he has no talent, so apparently settles for dinner parties with the older second hand geezer. His dingy mom shows up, appears to mess things up but actually steers Paul right; they bond lying on the bed together looking at stars on the ceiling. Phooie.

laicsfc While there are a few cringe-worthy moments in this movie adaption of the novel ''the page turner'' this does not mar an otherwise good movie about an American teenager coming to terms with his homosexuality. Ganted,towards the end there are some soap opera style moments and Juliet's portrayal of the mother does tend to overact on occasion,however there are some very powerful if subtle emotional elements to ''food of love''. In particular when Paul reluctantly offers himself with little resistance to Richard's sleazy lover/manager's desire for oral excitement;the camera pans around to a picture of Richard and then back to Paul for a close-up of the deeply sad longing expression. The character of Richard who Paul is besotted by is interesting as he doesn't portray the gay stereotype as it works well against the more pretty-boy stereotype look of Paul.Although Richard's shallowness does come through towards the end as we find out that despite his ''normal'' outward intellectual manner he is just as sleazy as his partner/manager,a character I could have done with much less of. On the whole the editing is above average,the love scenes between Richard and Paul were enough to titillate for those viewers who seek such content in such films,and there were enough of them to compliment the storyline.One of these scenes was another example of the subtle yet powerful emotional elements in the film,as the viewer is lead to believe from the beginning that Paul is still a virgin when he meets Richard(having a mother such as he did in the movie would be almost enough to put you off women forever!),and the crushing of the ice cube during the love-making told us that this was no longer the case. I would definitely suggest at least hiring a copy of ''food of love'' and then decide if you want to own to watch again and again,chances are you will want to.

yawnmower1 I wanted so much to like this film, and I tried very hard to do so. But it is so inept, and has so many flaws, it is hard to know where to begin.The basic story is simple enough: piano student Paul is seduced by and falls in love with his idol, fortyish concert pianist Richard; he gets dumped inexplicably and spends the rest of the film trying to make sense of it. But add these extra ingredients -- Paul's neurotic mother also falling for the pianist, Richard's lover/manager seducing Paul while the boy is being kept by yet another older man -- and you have a rather heady Freudian stew, indeed.What these noxious, self-absorbed characters have in common, keeping the handsome 18-year-old confused and depressed, is their duplicity. Nobody tells Paul the truth, rendering him unable to make a decision in his own interest. His beauty makes him desirable. His ingenuous nature makes him an easy mark.The dialogue is oddly disjointed though lifted directly from David Leavitt's well-written novel, The Page Turner. For some reason, about half of Mr. Leavitt's lines have been deleted, making those that remain a crazy-quilt of non-sequiturs. Adding to the confusion are British actors playing American refracted through the eyes and ears of a Spanish director. Then there are the Spanish actors who have learned their lines phonetically, wildly inflecting words incorrectly. Finally, a classical music consultant could have insured the proper pronunciation of composers' names, or pointed out that most of the pieces Paul plays are embarrassingly inappropriate.What the film does do well is to depict the haute-gay classical music demi-monde of New York, and the predatory older men who rule from lofty Central Park West enclaves. This exclusive oligarchy devours the seemingly unlimited supply of hopeful young artists, like Paul, who want to succeed but cannot due to inexperience and inaptitude for the game. A 'civilized' veneer covers, but never quite hides, the self-serving artistic Darwinism.Exquisite Kevin Bishop, who plays Paul so perfectly, is a real find. He has a low-key style, lovely body, and astonishing blue eyes. Barcelona is exotic, the photography is beautiful, and the original score is well done, but the DVD itself has problems. The dialogue is somewhat out of sync, is overly loud in some places (mainly due to Juliet Stevenson's histrionics), and nearly inaudible in others.

xrw First of all, I think I may have been blinded by either Bishop's beauty, or the fact that this film is so easily applicable to any mother and gay son relationship... But, I thought that the movie was quite good. At first I thought the focus was the relationship between Paul and Richard, but in fact, the entire movie (and it becomes so clear) is about Paul's relationship with his mother. I thought it very accurately captured the idea of troubled gay youth and frantic parental worry... I have a mother who's quite similar (without the divorce) and worry's as much... so it touched my heart in a heavy way. The culmination of all the assumptions, worries, and intertwined stories really made the last few moments an emotional ride like few other gay themed films. If you're involved in classical music, are between the ages of 18 and 27, are a gay male, and have parents who don't quite understand... this movie is for you. If you're a mother of the man mentioned above, this movie is for you, as well.