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Harry + Max (Harry and Max) (2003)

tomatometer

5

Average Rating: 3.2/10
Reviews Counted: 22
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 21

Despite impressive performances from its leads, Harry and Max is prurient, disturbing, and underdeveloped.

11

Average Rating: 3.2/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 8

Despite impressive performances from its leads, Harry and Max is prurient, disturbing, and underdeveloped.

audience

29

liked it
Average Rating: 2.6/5
User Ratings: 414

My Rating

Movie Info

Following up his critically acclaimed third film, 2001's The Sleepy Time Gal, filmmaker Christopher Munch helmed this dramedy about a pair of brothers who embark on a camping trip together. Harry (Bryce Johnson) is the eldest of the two, a 23-year-old former teen idol who has stopped off for the long-promised expedition while en route to a gig in Japan. Max (Cole Williams) is Harry's 16-year-old younger brother, a burgeoning pop star himself. As the siblings begin spending time together in

Unrated, 1 hr. 14 min.

Drama, Gay & Lesbian

Christopher Münch

Jul 20, 2005

TLA Releasing

Cast

All Critics (23) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (2) | Rotten (21) | DVD (2)

Seems like the work of a novice, with self-conscious expository passages and emotionally false conversations.

April 29, 2005 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

To consider Harry and Max as being about incestuous feelings would be shortchanging it, because the film is really about the evolving nature of love and the need to define it.

March 24, 2005 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Provocative without being especially thoughtful or credible.

March 10, 2005 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Too superficial to shock or surprise.

February 18, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Director Christopher Munch deftly raises disturbing questions, but he fumbles badly when groping for answers.

February 18, 2005 Comment
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There are brave, boundary-breaching movies, and there are mad, foolhardy ones. Harry and Max belongs to the latter breed.

February 17, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As disturbing and unsettling as the subject matter is what is truly sad is that the performances of the two leads were impressive and they ended up being wasted by the trash content of the script.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

Though Williams and Johnson fit comfortably into the European naturalism that's become Münch's stock in trade, they can't quite wriggle out of his high-concept premise and become plausibly real.

September 26, 2005 Full Review Source: AV Club | Comment
AV Club

The actors are tender and raw and believable as boy band fodder.

August 29, 2005 Full Review | Comment
International Press Academy

...incest...pedophilia...the film seems to be nothing more than an attempt to affirm a sense of I'm-OK-you're-OK normality for any viewers with such issues in their own lives.

April 29, 2005 Full Review Source: SPLICEDWire | Comment
SPLICEDWire

You watch this prurient would-be porn, treated with kid-glove 'sensitivity,' in a state of disbelief.

March 24, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

The movie is a congeries of half-formed ideas about pansexuality and other social taboos, but Munch fails to accomplish what he seemingly sets out to do.

March 24, 2005 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | Comment
L.A. Weekly

The blurred boundary between intimacy and sexuality ... isn't broached with the sensitivity and maturity that it demands.

February 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | Comment
Boxoffice Magazine

Harry and Max is writer-director Christopher Munch's seemingly candid exorcism of any number of self-consciously naughty fantasies.

February 19, 2005 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Chatty scenes ramble on and on, supporting characters are underdeveloped, and all the sibs' angst does little to make their tortured relationship very credible or interesting.

February 18, 2005 Full Review Source: E! Online | Comment
E! Online

The film winds up dancing around the 500-lb gorilla in the middle of the room rather than facing the pathology of its real subject head-on.

February 18, 2005 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Intermittently insightful, but a disappointment from the talented Munch.

February 17, 2005 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Harry + Max (Harry and Max)

This was a random watch for me, and it ended up being about gay incest (!) However, it's forgettable.... in fact, I can't remember anything about it other than the brothers taking a road trip, and I don't remember any steamy scenes. So... what I can say from it is: This gay-themed road movie is gay. I'm anticipating

June 11, 2009
RicC
Richard Cranium

This is not the best movie nor is it the worst. A touchy subject looked at but not explained or judged. Sort of abrupt ending - like they spent their time with the exposition and had to rush to wind it up. See it before you buy it.

February 22, 2009
gms1yygy
Glen Shrope

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