DAVID'S BIRTHDAY

(2009) It's been a long, long time since a film ticked me off so much I wanted to throw something at the screen - but if even a meat cleaver had been the only thing handy by the time I reached the ending of David's Birthday, I'd be without anything to watch movies on now.  The premise of this Italian film held a ton of promise for drama: two very busy married couples - Diego (Alessandro Gassman) and Shary (Michela Cescon), along with best friends Matteo (Massimo Poggio) and Francesca (Maria de Medeiros), have a rare opportunity to spend the summer together when Shary rents a gorgeous home by the sea on the Italian Riviera.  Though Shary and Diego's marriage seems strained - he lives in Italy because of work, while she lives in New York City for the same reason - Francesca and Matteo couldn't be happier, with a little girl they've sent to stay with other family.  The foursome know each other well and have a great time, Shary and Diego in particular looking forward to the arrival of their son David (Thyago Alves), who's coming to visit from New York toward the end of the summer for his eighteenth birthday, his first time back in Italy in five years.  It's when their son arrives that things start to unravel, however, as David has grown into a genuine beauty of a man ... and Matteo, to his own surprise, finds himself growing increasingly - and sexually - attracted to the boy; the son of his best friends.  SO many ways this could have played out, but instead things are actually drawn out interminably, Massimo Poggio's performance as Matteo by far the standout of the film; you can almost feel him fighting the attraction, not understanding it and seemingly being pulled against his will to be near the model-like youth.  Then the film falls apart, with a horrific, insultingly stupid and melodramatic ending that seems to bear the message that if you have sex with another guy, only tragedy is in store.  The ending is so overwrought, so ... Shakespearian (but as if acted by a really bad community theater troupe), that if the anti-gay message inherent in it hadn't been so in-your-face, it would have been laughable.  As it is, the ending is only ludicrous and depressing, Massimo Poggio the film's only saving grace after all.  (not rated) 3/10