Handsome Devil
Drama | Director: John Butler | Ireland
Northeast Premiere
The raves are in for Handsome Devil! Screen International called it: “A jaunty, joyous tale.” Vanity Fair proclaimed it: "Perky and entertaining.” Watchthisfilm described it as: "a beautiful lesson in the importance of living outside of a binary world." Daily Mall named it: "A little gem."
In this film, Ned and Conor are forced to share a bedroom at their Irish boarding school. The loner and the star athlete at this rugby-crazed school form an unlikely friendship until it’s tested by the authorities. The two roommates, arbitrarily housed together, are very different high schoolers yet they share much more than a room and a school but the status of genuinely being outsiders who, ultimately, must learn to be true to themselves, the most important lesson of all, no matter what the consequences.
World premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, this coming-of-age story is told refreshingly and celebratorily. Wrote The Hollywood Reporter: “Versions of many of the key elements in Irish writer-director John Butler's Handsome Devil are familiar, from the geek pariah to the sexy masculine jock, the inspirational English teacher to the homophobic rugby coach, right down to the sports match as a test of outsider self-affirmation. But the sweetness, poignancy and breezy humor of this Emerald Isle bildungsroman also make it pretty darn impossible to resist.