Akron *** (2015, Matthew Frias, Edmund Donovan, Cailan Rose, Luis Gabriel Cañas) – Classic Movie Review 12,386

Matthew Frias and Edmund Donovan star in the bitter-sweet 2015 romantic drama film Akron as college freshmen who meet at a football game and fall in love, but a tragic event from the past tears them apart.

Matthew Frias and Edmund Donovan star in the bitter-sweet sensitive and moving 2015 romantic drama Akron as University of Akron, Ohio, college freshmen Benny and Christopher, who meet at a football game and fall in love. Benny stays at home with his loving family, while Christopher shares a cramped dorm room with a boring video game-loving buddy.

Benny and Christopher joyfully and openly embark on a promising and hopeful relationship with, rather surprisingly, the full support of their families and friends. There is no conflict. Everyone has accepted gay male love and themselves. Just when all is going brilliantly well, as the boys head off for a fun Spring Break in Florida to stay with Christopher’s mom there, a tragic event involving their mothers from the long-ago past comes to light, and they are suddenly overwhelmed, devastated.

Everybody seems to blame everybody else for what happened and what is happening. It tears the two men apart – and permanently – unless everybody in the two families can somehow come to terms with the painful truth and finally move on.

Both the drama and the romance are convincingly done, and the acting persuades too. There are some very strong scenes, and some killer dialogue as it goes along, with the sweet romance turning bitterly sour suitably painfully. The changes of heart at the end are slightly rushed but the film’s warm heart overcomes that. Hope, love and optimism are the order of the day and. as time goes by, we need more and more of it. Akron offers just that.

The independent, LGBT themed film is directed by Brian O’Donnell and Sasha King, and written by Brian O’Donnell.

Akron premiered at the 2015 Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival and was released in February 2017 by Wolfe Video in the US and Canada.

The cast are Matthew Frias as Benny Cruz, Edmund Donovan as Christopher Welling, Joseph Melendez as Benny’s father David Cruz, Andréa Burns as Benny’s mother Lenora Cruz, Isabel Rose Machado as Benny’s sister Becca Cruz, Amy da Luz as Christopher’s mother Carol Welling, Cailan Rose as Benny’s best friend Julie, Daniel O’Donnell as Christopher’s roommate Tucker, and Emily Patterson as check-out clerk.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,386

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