The Dream Children 2015

The Dream Children 2015
1h 38min | Drama | 30 April 2015 (USA)
Storyline:
Troubled TV personality Steven Evans struggles to find meaning in his life in the face of the superficial world he has created. Smothered by celebrity and materialism, Steven's only respite is through solitary visits to the ocean and shallow sexual encounters with the acquaintances that orbit his life. When his long-term partner hurls him headfirst into fatherhood, Steven's initial reluctance is gradually replaced with love, as he discovers, in his new family, a bond stronger than any he has experienced before. But the return of an unexpected visitor triggers off a series of events that thrusts Steven and his family into a cycle of loneliness, self-destruction and grief.
User review:
Gloriously gay from its sensual start, this emotional rollercoaster ride of a film, as based on the stage play Internet Baby by Julia Britton and adapted for the screen by noted Melbourne playwright and actor Angus Brown, is but a tour de force from leads Graeme Squires and Nicholas Gunn; faces that will be familiar to fans of global Aussie soaps Home and Away and Neighbours. Yet what the pair get up to here is certainly past the watershed, having thrown themselves with wild gay abandon into their roles, letting their mouths pay tender lip-service, that is when not getting down to some seriously naked man-sex that is sure to become a topic of conversation.
Yet at the core of this film is the issue of child adoption, a situation that no doubt many gay couples will find themselves in, yearning to adopt a child, yet faced with the reality that at the period in which the film is set (early 2000's) and even to this day in certain Australian States, male same-sex couples have virtually no opportunities to become legally recognized parents and adopt a child. It's a situation that finds Steve and Alex enlist the services of Nerine; a newly pregnant loose cannon of a girl who has no desire to raise a child, being all too keen to take the money and run. Only run she does not, returning later to remind the gay dads of the bitter home truth that they have no legal rights to adopt, or even rear – their son.