Rachelle sent us a message asking if we could do LGBTQ film reviews. Of course we can! We hosted the Daisy Harris film blog tour a little while back. But Evaine’s got her hands full with wrangling author posts, and finding daily porn pics really is a time consuming job for me, so we’re turning it over to you, dear readers, to provide reviews for Feature Film Fridays. It can be long and detailed, or short and sweet. If you’ve got a review you want to post, or a movie you want to recommend for a review, leave a comment or email us at cupoporn@gmail.com.

Rachelle has even graciously kicked things off with her review of From Beginning to End. The review and trailer are after the cut!

“I love you because to understand our love they would have to turn the world upside down.”

This 2009 Brazilian film (sub-titled), deals with what many Americans would consider taboo. This film follows the tight bond of two half brothers from infancy to adulthood and the tight bond they form that becomes more.

The film starts with a five year old Francesco visiting his baby brother, Thomas, at the hospital shortly after being born. Thomas was born with his eyes closed and doesn’t open them until Francesco comes to visit, where Thomas then opens his eyes and looks right into his brothers eyes. The actors who played the brothers in the childhood years and in adulthood all played their characters beautifully. I loved that you were able to see how their bond and love for one another grew. It makes you think what it would be like to be with your “soul mate” from the beginning.

Thomas gets some exciting news that will try their relationship. Thomas has been offered a spot on the Brazilian Olympic swimming team that comes with a 3 year stay in Russia to train. The time away from one another is beyond hard for them, Thomas is now without his best friend, brother, lover and biggest supporter and has to cope while perusing his dreams in a foreign city. Francesco is lost without his other half and is confused and trying to cope while battling temptation to replace this whole in his heart while being without his love.

The only real criticism I have is that I felt it jumped from their childhood to adulthood too quickly and we missed 15 years, however the film jumps to after a tragedy that strikes the family, and shows how the two finally come to terms with their love for one another. I also would have liked to have more dialogue when the brothers are older and to even have the second half of the movie be a bit longer to really get to know these characters even more now that they have come to terms with their love for one another. I personally like to really get to know the characters and become really invested in them, which is why I truly like Novels to Novellas and really like series that have the same main characters.

Bonus, this is a Brazilian film and they do not have the same hang ups on sexuality and nudity that we do in the States and there is the occasional full frontal nudity. You can rent this movie through Amazon or Youtube I know for sure.

I would give this film 3 out of 4 stars and totally recommend it. The director really did this movie justice and broached this sensitive topic beautifully. I feel that it could have been even better had it been a tad longer with more depth in their adulthood, or even a sequel so I can see where they are now.

Minor Spoiler Alert

If you’re like me you only want to watch positive, happy ending movies. I will go out of my way to make sure I will not be terribly upset at the end (Brokeback Mountain anyone?). Real life is hard enough I don’t feel that it needs to be hard in the movies as well, especially in LGBTQ genre. This movie does have that happy ending that I wanted, however I just wish it would have gone on a bit more before ending, all in all though it was still good.