I Want Your Love

Travis Mathews came to widespread attention earlier in 2013 thanks to a film he co-directed with actor James Franco called ‘Interior. Leather Bar’, a faux-documentary riffing on Hollywood’s attitudes towards sexuality by way of William Friedkin’s ‘Cruising’ (1980) and some explicit gay sex. This was new territory for Franco but familiar ground for Mathews, whose ‘In Their Room’ short films show real people in intimate and sexual settings. Backed by porn company Naked Sword, his debut feature, ‘I Want Your Love’ (which pre-dates ‘Leather Bar’), explores similar terrain. It focuses on San Francisco-based aspiring performance artist Jesse (Jesse Metzger) and friends as Jesse prepares to leave town, and includes sexual encounters as part of its semi-improvised observations of contemporary queer life (call it mumblehardcore). The main gambit works: the sex feels plausible and enriches our understanding of the characters and their lives without fetishing or sensationalising sexuality. Given the low-octane plotting, audience enjoyment is more likely to be dictated by tolerance of generally aimless, often witty, sometimes pretentious West Coast hipsterdom.