larapha I could hardly say I liked In Bloom. At first for its title: nothing is booming there. On the contrary, the main couple is in crisis. Another film showing gay lifestyle as aimless and linked with drugs. And more concerning: nobody does care that one of the main characters lives of this 'profession' as he goes getting High from one setting to another. The other person for the couple also lives a meaningless live, just working to pay the bills, as it seems. Nothing remotely romantic in the air. To complicate the things, there is a serial murder that is attacking young man, in a subplot never developed. The main characters also didn't convince me. They deliver their lines, for the most part of the flick. I couldn't see passion in their eyes, much less live. Ass a role, I found it a film hard to watch: no bloom, no love, no life.

l_rawjalaurence Filmed in and around Chicago. C. M. Birkmeier's no-budget film centers on a turbulent relationship between Kurt (Kyle Wigent), and Paul (Tanner Rittenhouse). They begin the film with their affair completely "in bloom," as the title suggests; but then Kurt declares openly to Paul that he is no longer in love. Whether that is actually true or not is a moot point; by the film's end, when Kurt is the unwitting witness to an horrific murder, he actually discovers the true meaning of fidelity and loyalty.The plot is a familiar one, but director Birkmeier reinvigorates it through a suggestive cinematic style. His stock-in-trade is the flat two-shot framing Kurt and Paul as they eat Chinese food, play video games, or sit in bed. This might suggest closeness, but can also denote imprisonment; hence Kurt's desire to escape the relationship. Yet Birkmeier also uses the aerial shot looking down on the two lovers as they lie in bed together. They seem quite far distant from the camera - a fitting metaphor, perhaps, for the state of their affair. On another occasion he films them making love to one another; they are actually lying horizontally in bed, but Birkmeier shoots them from the side and then turns the image through forty-five degrees, making it seem as if they are standing up, having a "quickie" before moving on.On other occasions Birkmeier uses locations to suggest the sterility of the protagonists' existence. Paul spends his days in a grocery- store filling shelves and exchanging desultory conversation with co- worker Eddie (Jake Andrews). Meanwhile Kurt visits several groups of youngsters to sell them weed; while making a lot of ready money from the deals, he does not seem to enjoy it very much. Or maybe he is just frightened of engagement with anyone, whether boyfriends or others.Critics might accuse IN BLOOM of giving a stereotyped portrait of a gay community as promiscuous, drug-addicted and hedonistic. This is perhaps a little too censorious: Birkmeier seems more interested in the emptiness of his characters' existences as they move aimlessly from party to party without any real aim in life. This is the main reason for Paul and Kurt's break-up; while they claim to have each other, they both realize that the relationship will not get anywhere.

lasttimeisaw IN BLOOM, the debut feature from director/writer Chris Michael Birkmeier, a genre mixture tale in Chicago, recounts the ups-and-downs of a young couple Kurt (Wigent) and Paul (Rittenhouse), the former is a drug-dealer, but his clientèle are mostly hipster youngsters, so it is not a swearing, gun-crazy thriller one might expect for this sort of job; but Paul is a clerk in a supermarket, who scorns this line-of-work, yet as long as it pays for the bills, he can just condone it. A looming danger which quite inferiorly sets the suspenseful tone is a serial killer on the lam, whose victims are uniformly young males, which is haphazardly reminded from news flashes on TV and a random enactment. In the midstream, a stimulation to mislead us Kurt is going to be the next victim, until edging to the coda, a final victim would supposedly thrust a revelation for Kurt about the profundity of love, which frankly speaking, is quite a lame strategy to choose this particular object. Apparently, the central story is an ever-so-common relationship quandary, Kurt is the variant who is frustrated and scared to find out the sexual attraction has dwindled, which for any mature mind, it is a sign that their relationship eases into another critical phase, when passion turns into the form of a deeper love. But as a young blood, he clearly is not that smart, and incited by external temptation from one of his client Kevin (Fane), he breaks off the relationship, but the new lifestyle is not his messiah, when remorse overcomes, can he mend his mistake?Generally speaking, IN BLOOM looks rather cheap in appearance, especially the night time scenes, amateurish and uninspiring, the storyline awkwardly fatigues although the two leads strives to perk up the borderline insufferable narrative to some extent. By any criterion, it is difficult to pick anything singular for praise, on the whole, the film's sole plausible excuse of its existence is that it enters on a gay couple, otherwise, hopefully years later, when we look back from a time when sexuality will no longer be an irrelevant topic, the movie will be remissly regarded as one of the anachronism from a bygone era, that will be the best scenario ever!

Irishchatter This movie really makes your skin crawl. It was heartbreaking that Kurt was dealing with drugs for a living. Like I would've thought that Paul really should have made the effort to get Kurt out of drug dealing and get him help like it should've been part of the film really. Instead it was like Paul didn't bother his head to help him when he found out what he was doing.The only part I was glad and relieved in the movie was, Paul helped Kurt with his injuries when Kurt was a victim of being mugged. However I was surprised the bad guy or the police weren't talked about much in this film because I really wanted the bad guy to be caught and explain why he mugged Kurt! This storyline seems to be really rushed to be honest with you. This was with regards in how us audience really want to know much detail what really and clearly is happening with the boys and the film itself!