Going All the Way

Film review that was first a comment; in reply to a thread on IMDb.

I waited, too, to see if they'd discover one another further than what's in the movie, though New York's Greenwich Village alluded to as much.

The film felt open-ended and probably stayed true to the very letter of the novel it was based on, which, I assume, was just as vague, suggesting several possible outcomes, depending on the eye of the beholder.

I would have ended it differently and sweetly. Even if such a happy-end situation were there, then after they guys would meet in NYC, the most possible outcome would have by then been known in advance to any viewer with a brain.

Fortunately, the ending was not as tragic as the one in "The Locusts"...
Would I (have) cast a different actor to play Sonny, just for the sake of seeing Sonny and Gunner (as played by Affleck) discover one another and consummate a possible guy/guy relationship brewing underneath?

Well, I don't know if I would — Davies is just too unique an actor, and the original story shows an environment so devoid of substance that it would not want to suggest anything that would be gay; For example, sodomy laws in the U.S. were not repealed before 1970's, neither was homosexuality an acceptable topic in the kind of polite society shown in this film. The novel by the same title was published in 1970, which is when attitudes towards homosexuality in the U.S. somehow started to thaw, and then only really slowly.

I think I did notice some lines in the movie from which I could infer that there could have been guy/guy relationships, I think in the very inconspicous way Gunner formed words in his sentences. Oh well.

Yet, in conclusion, "Going All the Way" did suggest possible ways of how the Beat Generation sprung up.