Just Say Love
“Just Say Love is a stunning departure from the average stage-to-screen film. With simple sets on a dark sound-stage and just two actors, director Bill Humphreys and team have created a strikingly elegant, moving and satisfying film.”
– Amos Lassen
“Jaeger and Mammana are ideal in their delivery, and their eyes reveal their love and/or lust for one another, in this remarkable story of how life has a quirky way of showing us just exactly who we are.”
– Joseph R. Saporito, MundoQ
“The film’s real strength, though, is the palpable chemistry between Jaeger and Mammana, which smoothly and convincingly oscillates from lust to frustration to a love that throws both men off their game.”
– Ernest Hardy, Village Voice
“This film succeeds… in a big way!
– Jed Ryan, PM Entertainment Magazine
“Jaeger and Mammana couldn’t be better as they reveal that these two men, who move way beyond their stereotypical first impressions, affect each other in ways neither could have anticipated.”
– Kevin Thomas, LA Times
“A love story that delves beneath the veneer of everyday life and romance to examine the unseen ‘matrix’ of life”
– Invictus Pilgrim
“A funny, irreverant, soulful, humanistic look at relationships”
– Dan Mathews, Senior VP of Campaigns – PETA
Review by Live Out Loud Festival, Bellingham, WA
A stage play adapted into a feature-length film that explores whether physical attractions appear to be the obvious explanation for two people to become a pair. As the camera delves into the characters’ minds and souls, we find fulfillment on both a physical and spiritual level. With simple sets on a dark soundstage and just two actors, director Bill Humphreys and team have created a strikingly elegant, moving and satisfying film.
Review by Padraic Maroney – Contributor EDGE Entertainment News
One of the favorite films of the year, Just Say Love had the programmer unable to stop being complementary about the film. Using just two actors and simple sets, David Mauriello adapts his own play of the same name. Two men, one straight and the other gay, begin a purely sexual relationship. But as feelings grow between the straight one flees back to his girlfriend. Scott Cranin describes the film as “so new, so different and so beautiful.”
Written by Michael Gamilla, ImageOut: Rochester, NY LGBT Films and Video Festival
Just Say Love, selected for its audacity in portraying a complex love story in a most deceptively simple way, shows the gentler side of our ImageOut There! Series. Shot in a dark soundstage with strategically well-placed lightings and the barest minimum of props (a door frame, a hanging window sill, or a lamp post), the approach strips away any distractions from the graceful movements, the soulful eyes, and the well-delivered dialogue of the two captivating actors.
Writer David J. Mauriello, adapting his stage play for the screen, and director Bill Humphreys have crafted an elegantly pure, genuinely moving, and devastatingly honest depiction of love and desire between two men, and a relationship that defies definition. Easily the most tender film in this year’s lineup, Just Say Love will delight the hopelessly romantic and perhaps even soften some cynical hearts.
Review by Angelique Smith, The Reeling Film Festival
While sitting on a park bench one afternoon, Doug, a straight, sweaty, muscled construction worker, strikes up a conversation with Guy, a gay, slight, tree-hugging, vegetarian painter. Direct opposites in pretty much every way, the two banter on the works of Plato and theories of love and attraction, with Doug taking an oversimplified layman’s stance to Guy’s philosophical rants. With a pregnant girlfriend at home, Doug propositions Guy for a bit of oral, as he’s heard that gay guys are always willing to do that on a whim, and it doesn’t threaten Doug’s heterosexuality since it’s just a blowjob. Though appalled by his gall, Guy and Doug ultimately begin meeting for no-strings-attached afternoon trysts. As seasons pass and expectations shift, their one-sided, makeshift relationship tenderly progresses into something more, as forces beyond their control seem to be pulling the strings. Shot in a manner similar to Lars von Trier’s Dogville, with minimal, stage-like sets, Just Say Love is adapted from David J. Mauriello’s stage play of the same name. The film, featuring only two characters, is very dialogue-driven, exploring notions of happiness, feeding the body versus the soul, sexuality, and the laws of attraction.
