when love comes


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LOS ANGELES TIMES REVIEW

WHEN LOVE COMES (1998)
(MARK)
24/05/09

Dean was nominated as Best Actor for his performance as Mark at the 1999 Nokia New Zealand Film Awards.

When Love Comes was filmed in March-April, 1998 and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 1998 and in the US at the Sundance Film Festival in February 1999.

WLC was a crowd favorite at film festivals throughout the US, including The North Carolina Gay and Lesbian FF.

wlc uk poster
Photo: Millivres

When Love Comes premiered in Wellington, New Zealand in October, 1998 as part of the 43rd Asia Pacific Film Festival and opened in New Zealand theatres in September, 1999.

The movie opened in theatres in the United Kingdom in July, 2001. When Love Comes is currently available in the UK on video and DVD.

Blockbuster Video began renting WLC in the US in December 1999 and selling videos in March 2000.

In Summer 2002, When Love Comes became available in the US on DVD from TLA Video stores and online.

WLC has been shown often on TV in various countries on the Sundance Channel.

DEAN'S INTERVIEW ABOUT WHEN LOVE COMES

When Love Comes

wlc on the beach

when love comes

  

wlc mark and stephen
Photo from whenlovecomes.co.nz
Used with permission. WHEN LOVE COMES AND ALL CHARACTERS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MF FILMS

wlc poster

wlc mark
Photo from WLC CD

A "complex urban love story set against a vibrant world where creative energy runs rampant, illicit substances fuel artistic juices and sex is always available but love is elusive."

"A story of six friends and three kinds of love."

"The actor playing Mark had to be appealing and sexy, but also able to get beyond the character's melancholy while including it as well. It was a very fine line to walk. ... Dean just stood out shining," said director Garth Maxwell. "He was a genius with the role from the start ... energised, intuitive and true."

When Love Comes explores relationships among six characters: two young and happy-go-lucky lesbians enjoying a puppy love, a 40-year-old woman who's left a relationship with a married man, and a rocky May-December (September?) romance between gay men. Dean plays Mark, a desperately unhappy young man who hates himself so much he can't believe that anyone else could love him, especially Stephen, a man about 20 years older than he. Mark has it bad for Stephen and wants to believe it when Stephen tells him he loves him, but doesn't dare. So he abuses himself with about every substance known to man, selling himself for money or drugs and writing horrid song lyrics about pain and abuse for his two musician friends, Sally and Fig. Meanwhile, Stephen's oldest best friend Katie is coming back to NZ after 20 years in the States trying to make it in show biz. She's left her married boyfriend/producer Eddie behind while she tries to sort things out.

When Love Comes climaxes at her family beach house where Katie, in search of her roots, takes her oldest, best buddy Stephen. Stephen will come only if he can bring Mark, whose love and trust he keeps trying to win, despite Mark's irrational and self-destructive behavior.

Next morning, the girls show up at the beach with Katie's American lover Eddie, come unexpectedly to New Zealand in search of a reconciliation. The girls enjoy everything, and Eddie and Katie get back together. Amidst these couples, Mark admits to Stephen he's afraid to commit to the long-term relationship Stephen wants. It was different, he says, when Stephen paid him for sex, impersonal. But he feels he's got nothing to offer another and must leave. He hitches a ride back to Auckland.

Stephen spends a sleepless night reading a trashy paperback romance. Just as he slams the book shut as he finishes it, Mark returns to the "Honeymoon Hotel" and finally admits his love for Stephen with a tender kiss. The final scene shows Mark cradled in Steven's arms asleep, safe at last. Stephen symbolically removes Mark's "baggage" by removing his neck chain with his house key and other paraphernalia, and throwing it onto the nightstand, on top of his now abandoned romance novel.

when love comes cd      when love comes cd

The When Love Comes Soundtrack CD, produced by Mana Music, has apparently gone out of print.

• 1 Take it out (At Home) - Sophia Hawthorne
• 2 Stars in my eyes - Starring Sandy Mill as Katie Keen
• 3 Brand New Start - Starring Leza Lee as Katie Keen
• 4 Melusine - Jan Hellreigel
• 5 Do Blonde - Featuring Willerson Jensen
• 6 Another You - Sophia Hawthorne/Leza Lee
• 7 Ride - Mink
• 8 Married Man - Featuring David Goodison
• 9 Golden Halo - Mary
• 10 Take it out - Sophia Hawthorne/Nancy Brunning
• 11 Screwed up - Itchy
• 12 The Gatherer - Pitchblack
• 13 Brand New Start (Girls Own Mix) - Nancy Brunning
• 14 Another You (South Pacific Dub) - Dub mix by Angus McNaughton

CAST

Rena Owen : Katie Keen
Dean O'Gorman : Mark
Simon Prast : Stephen
Nancy Brunning : Fig
Sophia Hawthorne : Sally
Simon Westaway : Eddie

CREW

Producers : Michele Fanti, Jonathan Dowling
Writer/Director : Garth Maxwell
Writers : Rex Pilgrim, Peter Wells
Director of Photography : Darryl Ward
Production Manager : Liz DiFiore
Production Co-Ordinator : Juliette Veber
Production Assistant : Matthew Horrocks
Production Runners : Lisa Morrison, Jade Barker
Production Accountant : Andrea Mynott
Location Scout : Jaun Fisher
Location Manager : Rueben Pollock
Unit Manager : Peter Moerenhout
Unit Assistant : Brant Fraser
1st Assistant Director : Stewart Main
2nd Assistant Director : Nikolas Beachman
Production Designer : Grace Mok
Art Directors : Anthony Sumich, Charles McGuiness
Props Buyer/Set Dresser : Simonde Norden
Art Department Runner : David Thomas
Costume Designer : Kirsty Cameron
Wardrobe Standby : Deirdre McKessar
Wardrobe Assistant : Gudrun Kendall
Continuity : Melissa Lawrence
Makeup/Hair : Rita Lynch
Hairdresser : Bryan Hobbs-Crowther
Makeup Assistant : Deborah Moore
Focus Puller : Nick Hutchinson
Clapper Loader : Jac Fitzgerald
Grip : Dean Maxted
Gaffer : Joe Bidois
Best Boy : Mark Tierney
Lighting Assistants : Paul Ioasa, Phil Totoro
Post Production Supervisor : Roger Grant
Editor : Cushla Dillon
Assistant Editor : Angela Jackson
Sound Recordist/Post Prod : Dick Reade
Sound Assistant : Colleen Brennan
Music : Chris Anderston
Musical Director : Angus McNaughton
Special Effects Co-Ordinator : Andrew Beattie (WETA)
Location Special Effects : Film Effects Co Ltd
Location Special FX Spvsrs : Jasin Durey, Paul Verall
Location SpFX Technicians : Mike Carhill, Sharon Ninness
Stills Photographer : Criag White
Unit Publicist : Sian Clement
Catering : Peter Bonifant, Bonifant & Keely
Safety : Willie Heatly, Shane Armitage, Lifeguard & Safety Management

PRODUCTION COMPANIES

MF Films

TOP

When Love Comes Review by Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Personal Crossroads at Heart of 'Love'

Garth Maxwell's "When Love Comes" is an edgy, multi-character love story whose central figure, a fading pop singer, is played by the compelling New Zealand actress Rena Owen, who won international acclaim as the weary, abused wife in Lee Tamahori's 1994 "Once Were Warriors."

Owen's Katie Keen is a country girl whose natural singing talent took her to America in the late '70s, where she scored a No. 1 hit. She's been living off that renown ever since with increasingly diminishing returns. Reduced to playing rowdy clubs whose youthful audiences don't know who she is and couldn't care less, Katie can no longer hold an audience's attention.

Realizing that she's hit rock bottom, she sees her only salvation in returning home to her native New Zealand in an attempt to rebuild her life and hopefully reinvent herself as a performer. Her parents have died, and she looks for refuge in her best friend, Stephen (Simon Prast), who is a waiter at a posh Auckland restaurant. Somewhere in her 40s, Katie combines majestic poise, a sometimes ravaged beauty with an earthy, unpretentious personality and an uncommon capacity for self-reflection. Beneath her star's poise and glamour look, however, lies a highly vulnerable woman.

Katie and Stephen have one of those deep bonds that transcends time and distance. They are completely open with each other, and if either should upset the other, they get over it with a forthrightness and forgiveness that's enviable. Katie is thinking of making a comeback via a one-woman show, and her manager-lover, Eddie (Simon Westaway), back in the U.S. even has a taping set that could lead to a TV variety series. Eddie sees in the eloquence and detachment with which she is able to speak of herself and her career the perfect material with which to frame a revival performance.

In the meantime, Stephen himself is at a crossroads. Whether through inheritance or investments, Stephen has acquired a comfortable, tasteful lifestyle. He has fallen in love with a classic golden boy, Mark (Dean O'Gorman), who was a male hustler when they first met. Mark has moved on to become a gifted pop lyricist, and his pals, Fig (Nancy Brunning), a drummer, and her lover and performing partner, Sally (Sophia Hawthorne), a singer, are trying to break through as rock performers. They have enough drive, energy and talent to have a chance of making it.

Fig and Sally, in their youth, are blessedly uncomplicated and resilient, but Mark is steeped in confusion and uncertainty about every aspect of his life. He seems to care for Stephen but isn't ready to settle down. Having moved beyond a commercial relationship with the older man, he's unsure of whether he's up to the responsibilities of being Stephen's lover.

"When Love Comes" culminates with this group, later joined by Eddie, taking off to the beautiful seaside region where Katie grew up.

All of this is, thankfully, not as neat and tidy as it sounds. Maxwell, who has directed episodes on both the "Xena" and "Hercules" series and has one well-received feature, "Jack Be Nimble," behind him, plays against the send-'em-home-happy trajectory of his story with an aura of tentativeness. Stephen and Mark may well reach a moment of rapport, but there's no telling whether they will be able to build a relationship upon it, let alone one that will endure, and while Katie and Eddie may be heading off into the sunset together, there's no certainty that Katie will be able to revive her career and take it in a new direction. Only Fig and Sally, without having any conflict in the first place, continuing bobbing along a bit wiser from all the emotional fireworks around them.

Although "When Love Comes" is traditional in structure, it is nonetheless risky; it allows its characters plenty of time and space to be insufferable, as most people can be in real life. Yet Maxwell has the kind of compassion and detachment to keep his picture from becoming insufferable.

Beyond that, Maxwell displays a talent for dialogue and direction--and also for apt song lyrics--to make these people engaging and worth caring about. Owen and Prast, both of whom are well-seasoned actors, possess a wit and depth that lend gravity to a film intent on capturing the skittishness and tentativeness that so often accompany matters of the heart.

Friday August 20, 1999