Surprisingly incoherent and boring

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

We begin in the present day with sexy mother Kyra Sedgwick (as Emily Stoll) and cute 6-year-old son Dominic Scott Kay (as "Loverboy" Paul) in a car. She tells him how she wanted to have a baby ("Loverboy") desperately. Her trying to get pregnant takes up the first flashback sequence. When artificial insemination doesn't work out, Ms. Sedgwick decides it's best to receive "multiple ejaculations from different sources," or, "many men equals no father." The simulated library encounter doesn't even look close enough to be making the necessary contact, but eventually Sedgwick is successfully a mother...Next flashback series goes farther back in time, to introduce Sedgwick as a little girl with self-absorbed parents Kevin Bacon (as Mark) and Marisa Tomei (as Sybil). This seems to be saying something about Sedgwick's character, and may be predicting problems for her son. However, none of it is really very clear. Not sure what to make of the story, although Sedgwick and Mr. Bacon (her husband, also the director) do okay. A look at the credits shows most of the Bacon family was involved with the making of "Loverboy". The topic is unsavory, but ripe with dramatic possibilities; herein, they are not fully realized.***** Loverboy (1/24/05) Kevin Bacon ~ Kyra Sedgwick, Dominic Scott Kay, Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei

LOVERBOY is a deceptive feature. It starts quite cheerfully, introducing us to the free spirit that Emily is as she moves from man to man, trying to have a son, and failing each time. The movie seems to be trying to present Emily as this ultimate feminist -- a woman who has the means to live independent from a man's company, who is unabashedly sexual and maybe a little dangerous. She's even tried artificial insemination -- it's one of the movie's first scenes as a matter of fact -- to no avail. Even her voice-over seems rather upbeat... until she begins to display hints of a less balanced personality. The fact the is aggressively trying to become a mother -- the seed of many fathers is equal to having no actual face, no actual gene to trace her son back to, so she philosophizes -- is but the seed of a greater evil, one that involves the fruit of her loins.The appearance of a kind man (Campbell Scott in a brief scene) is the catalyst for her motherhood to take effect. Of course, predictably, she takes the money and runs as far as she can, purchasing a house in cash, and letting loose her inner demons where she begins to call her son "Loverboy" (hence, the movie's title). It's a subtle but shocking left turn that discloses the real pathos that was always there. Emily wants no man in her life because she is literally saving herself for the one man who will come from within her: it's a symbolic way of securing the ties between two people, and an extreme one. Her boy is tied to her through the placental cord from which she has fed him, now he will be hers in every possible way. What she ignores is that "Loverboy" grows increasingly independent from her. Every tug of her possessiveness garners an equally reactive tug of assertiveness from Paul who almost comes to hate her. The appearance of external elements -- a father figure under the form of Matt Dillon, a school system that is battling her monstrous motherhood, and her own hurt child who was barbarously neglected by her disco-dancing parents (Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei) and abandoned by a neighbor who acted as a mother figure (Sandra Bullock) -- drive Emily to the edge of sanity.LOVERBOY is an actress' dream movie: one that can allow her to display her range in a character that has many levels of femininity, some initially rather thrilling, others quite frightening. Emily is a marked woman whose wounds have not healed with time, and Kyra Sedgwick, an actress who has had moderate success, finds a powerful role here. She is in nearly every shot, and where another less subtle actress might have overdone the moment Emily's damaged psyche surfaces, Sedgwick maintains a certain beauty, a certain elegance even when her resolution is horrific. Kevin Bacon has made a haunting movie, one that has depth, a strong visual sense, and doesn't shy away from its dark heart for the sake of satisfying a wider audience.

I can't say I'm very surprised by the rating this great movie gets, nor am I shocked to see some moronic comments on how the storyline is "horrible" or "gross". The topic and development of the story are controversial and sensitive to say the least and it's a sad reality that people just can't get pass their judgemental posturing and try to see things from another point of view.Kyra Sedgwick carries the movie on her shoulders from start to finish. Not only does she give poetry and the right amount of quirkiness to a character that could have been nightmarish otherwise but she really manages to convey the love her character feels for her son effortlessly so much so that the transition to her psychotic obsession is seamless. Even if the plot is made in such a way that it's impossible for you to empathize with her, you certainly feel for her.The direction is remarkable and adds to the magic of the world Emily creates for her son. Bacon did a great job of going back and forth in time without being confusing, which was a major challenge with the script and the editing works perfectly at revealing Emily's character and story bit by bit without divulging more than necessary and all the while framing what's important to understand her behavior.It's never tacky, nor judgemental, nor is it complacent. It's a story of love and how far it can go. Recommended.

Kevin Bacon is a fine actor, and I was looking forward to this, his debut as a director. He's certainly worked with some of the best in the business, and one would hope that he'd picked up some great lessons in film making.But this film, sadly, doesn't offer us much.I believe the two main reasons it doesn't work are the script, and the casting of Kyra Sedgewick, Mr. Bacons real life wife.The script is pretentious and humorless and forced, and Ms. Sedgewick, a fine actress with a beautiful body (shown off here quite often) is almost fetishized by her husband in this film- to the detriment of the story itself.It's a film chock-a-block with celebrity cameos, everyone from Matt Dillion to Sandra Bullock to Campbell Scott and Marisa Tomei, and no one really survives it.I will say this though- it is a BOLD failure, and I do look forward to what Mr. Bacon can do with a half decent script. He (and we) deserve better.