A True Gentleman 2024 Movie Review
Much conflict in films is caused by lies and deceit. In the case of A True Gentleman, student Nehir only discovers in the third act that her new flame Saygin is a gigolo. In other films, a tower of extravagant lies and half-truths is built on this premise. But here Saygin has it easy; Nehir never asks what Saygin does in everyday life, or how he, a never-finished-schooler, came to own such a shiny BMW.
In that respect , A True Gentleman , a Turkish drama by Onur Bilgetay, is just as old-fashioned as the title suggests. The women are naive, talkative, emotional or somewhat false, the men tough, troubled and emotionally closed. Now, there is some development going on, sometimes more credible than other times, but the division of roles is traditional. The sex scenes are also quite subdued for a drama about a male sex worker. Usually, there is a quick cut.
Most of the intimacy comes from the many intimate close-ups of the actors. They manage to tell a story with their eyes alone. These scenes are better than those in which the camera is spinning around busily to indicate that the main character is going crazy, or the scenes in which sweet strings play right through an emotional dialogue. The style is also somewhat soap opera-like; the glass of wine in the face and slap with an open hand are brought out again.
At a certain point, Saygin becomes the ‘property’ of an older woman, who turns out to be the mother of Nehir’s best friend. Furthermore, there are also arguments, fire, cancer, drugs and death around the corner. At the same time, this carousel of misery also works to the advantage of the film. This is not a light-hearted Pretty Woman with the gender roles reversed, but a film that can also show the wrinkles and bags under the eyes of the depressed Saygin. A film with guts and balls.
For those who thought A True Gentleman was a romcom, the film has some refreshing surprises in store that give the ending in particular a reasonable aftertaste. That helps to forget that there are also whole passages that are quite boring. That eighty percent of the film takes place in stuffy rooms. And that there are a lot of long dialogues that keep repeating the same few jokes about limp pasta. You wish the main characters a happy ending at the end, but after almost two hours they can also leave again.
