POSTCARDS FROM LONDON

Steve McLean 2018 United Kingdom 87min english
Synopsis:
We’re not in Essex anymore. Suburban pretty boy Jim (Harris Dickinson, chiseled from stone) finds himself on the dripping-neon streets of London’s West End, desperate for companionship and to make ends meet. He finds both with The Raconteurs, dandyish art obsessives who usher him into “a world full of wonder and possibilities” as a high class rent boy. They teach him the dirty details of art history, of Caravaggio and how he turned tricksters and whores into saints. Sought after for his looks, Jim becomes a muse to johns and artists alike. But it’s not only his physical beauty that becomes a hot commodity; it’s also his own reaction to magnificence. Stricken with Stendhal Syndrome, a rare disorder where artistic splendor overwhelms the senses, a shady businessman tries to monetize his sickness. Used up by others as a matter of course, Jim longs to break free of the strictures of his potent allure. Postcards from London is a cornucopia of erudition, a one-of-a-kind fantasia exploring the controlled nature of artists, the sexual pull of true concentration, and the thin, gauzy line between objectified and objectifier. – Michael Belcher