"Apt Pupil" clearly and plainly presents the duality of the nature of man. Everything about the film is about that complexity in man. The tension and intricacies of relationships from parent to child, teacher to student, sex to violence, love to hate, aged to youth, are all juxtaposed and explored. Oddly, to accentuate this, the film is subtly homosexual. Recently, I have begun to realize that the nature of sexuality is that male\female relationships are simply an extension of reproductive nature, while male\male relationships are highly erotic, emotionally charge couplings that skirt that fine line between sexuality and violence. "Apt Pupil" seems to underscore this idea.

The film wastes no time getting to the plot we know is coming. A young man (Brad Renfro as Todd Bowden) realizes one of his neighbors is a former Nazi SS Member in hiding (played by Ian McKellen). Rather than turn him in to the authorities, Bowden, an honor roll student who has recently become interested in WWII due to a class in school, blackmails the German into teaching him the reality of Nazism. What follows is a harrowing, spiraling plot into the dark recess of men's minds where violence and sexuality are somehow mixed. Although Bowden and Dussander (McKellen) do not experience any sexual relations between them, the script by Brandon Boyce (based on a Stephen King novella), forges a sexual tension between them. This is shown in many ways including a dinner party where Dussander enthrals his young charge's parents with aged bravado which Bowden finds sickening. It's as if he is jealous of this new man in his life and does not want to share him with anyone else. Also, there is a line late in the film where Dussander implies that they are (mentally) fucking each other. This is all handled perfectly by Boyce and by director Bryan Singer ("The Usual Suspect").

Singer got into some hot water on the film shoot when several minors were forced to wear a flesh colored G-string in a shower scene and then complained to parents and their union. (The mess seems silly and one can only hope the youngsters never work in film again). But the suit filed seemed to "out" singer as a homosexual. If this is true it helps explain the numerous layers of homoerotica experienced in the film.

If there is a problem with the film, it is that it does not expose the true horrors of Nazism and the Third Reicht. It needs to assault our senses much more than it does in the film. We need to be sickened by the whole text but we are not. We need to see Bowden sinking deeper into the muck of his violent tendencies, but we do not. There is a surface layer of it here, but we do not seem to be dragged into it as deeply as we should.

Still, "Apt Pupil" is quite compelling. Renfro and McKellen ignite the screen with their tense chemistry. Renfro, ever fearless and unconventional, is bold in his exploration of the sexual feelings this violence ignites within him. He allows singer to film him only in his underwear, to explore the masturbatory nature of his inclinations, to show him as unable to experience a sexual relationship with a female. It is quite brave on Renfro's part. McKellen, meanwhile, is frightening in his examination of evil encased in a smiling, beguiling, senior citizen. We understand what Bowden sees within him. We come to like the man even when his grotesqueness is fully exposed to us. It is disturbing.

Singer has become one of America's most intense and interesting directors in just 3 films. He somehow takes his material and delves deeper into it that the script seems to suggest. It is thrilling to view his work.

Note:

Also with Bruce Davison, Joe Morton, Joshua Jackson, Ann Dowd, and David Schwimmer.

Boyce starred in Singer's first film, "Public Access."

Apparently, King's ending of the story has been changed for the film.

(Review written in 1998)

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