Latter Days: Critic Reviews

This gay romantic melodrama draws on an unconscionable number of conventions, but works in the end because of its commitment to its characters and a handful of fine performances.

It's timely, not to mention refreshing, to see an affirmation of true love over hot sex, along with a reminder that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Such a well-meaning but unambitious work that it's tempting to take it seriously even as you dismiss it.

Pilots its culture-challenging raison d'etre through an increasingly insufferable collection of gaysploitation conventions.

Despite the inherent cliches, Latter Days manages to rise above its formulaic plot, mainly because of the assured performance by Mr. Sandvoss.

Everyone in this movie has been ordered off the shelf from the Stock Characters Store, and none of them wandered in from real life.

Surprisingly dowdy-looking, shot more like a scruffy little naturalistic slice of alternative L.A. life than the star-crossed lover's daydream it mostly is.

This sitcom setup is as bad as it sounds, and Cox never really surmounts it.

A fairly flat, predictable tale.

A coming-of-age, coming-out, romantic comedy, religious intolerance flick, and if that sounds a bit crowded, that's because it is.

Cox, who wrote Sweet Home Alabama, again trades heavily in stereotype and coincidence for his directing debut.

It's a winning, heartfelt and conflicted piece where the conflicts often resolve themselves in surprising ways.

Cox's screenplay, while occasionally lapsing into the sort of cliches endemic to so many gay-themed films, generally treats its unusual subject matter with dignity and complexity, and the characters are well-drawn and sympathetic.

At once romantic, earthy and socially critical, Latter Days is a dynamic film filled with humor and pathos.

The BIG sex scene starts poorly as the pair, alone at last due to a so-convenient snow storm, efficiently undress themselves as if preparing for a rugby match ...

Cox -- who experienced the Mormon view on gay life firsthand -- gets the sort of performances out of his characters that will help you overlook what is cliched about the story.

simple paint-by-the numbers gay themed film that strikes directly at Mormon dogma, but it has a certain charm due mainly to Sandvoss' Herculean efforts

Ramsey's heartbreak, stock taking and determination to see to it the relationship gets a second chance are as affecting as anything the genre has produced in recent memory.

Overall generalities about the main characters, a tendency to reveal them through monologue rather than behavior, and a lack of curiosity about the Mormon youth's core beliefs keep Latter Days from feeling genuinely personal or particularly substantive.

The screenplay is efficient to a fault, populated with stock characters.