Five signs your preadolescent son may be “different,” from George Ratliff’s “Instruction Manual for Jittery New Parents”:

1) He has begun to exhibit an antipathy toward sports, devoting his extracurricular time to the decidedly less masculine hobby of playing piano; 2) He prefers the company of his swishy, “alternatively life-styled” uncle to his more fun-loving, jocular dad; 3) He constantly fusses with his appearance, i.e., the tidiness of his hair, the cut of his dandyish school uniform; 4) He begins to show a predilection for art, enjoys museums and history, and appreciates aesthetics at an early age; 5) He views himself as an outcast, asks if his parents view him as “weird,” and his thoughts often turn to death, and a loathing of the surrounding world.

Woe to the moms and dads who follows Ratliff’s guide to parenting—no sensitive coming-of-age drama, his Joshua is actually a histrionic horror film, opportunistically playing off of every single movie cliché about creepy kids in the service of some preposterously conceived, sloppily executed takedown of insular, privileged white family life. Click here to read the rest of Michael Koresky's review of Joshua.

Saw it at Sundance and called it a coming out story from the get go.

"While the film slowly reveals the depths of Joshua’s plan, it saves its juiciest revelation for the final frames; As Joshua serenades his gay (albeit only hinted at) uncle Ned (Dallas Roberts, showcased in a barrage of purple shirts, fashionably pin-striped suits and martinis) at the piano, the idea of an incestuous, homosexual awakening is proposed; Is Joshua a psychopathic little creep who is launching another operation of manipulation and destruction or is the kid coming out of the closet? I like to read the film in the latter sense, as the first gay horror film of the new century. It will be interesting to see how audiences react to the film; Will Fox Searchlight play the parental horror angle (most certainly) or will the coming out story at the heart of the film be recognized and promoted?"

http://blogs.indiewire.com/twhalliii/archives/012333.html#more

Well said, Michael.

And it's kind of shocking how it seems only a select group of people are noticing that. I mean, come the FUCK on.

I don't understand the value, though, as you put it, of a "coming out horror story"...if it's supposed to be satiric, it's one of the worst directed films I've ever seen, as it is distinctly from the straight jock dad's point of view. He's sympathetic, there's no question: his son is a creepy little fey twat, regardless of whether he's a murderer or not. The false ambiguity is pathetic...I heard that at the Film Comment Selects screening (ha!) of the film this week Ratliff was comparing his film to Haneke's Cache....because, I guess you never find out whether the kid's EVIL or not. Even though Ratliff has no interest in leaving it up to the audience, really; he's just feigning ambiguity. Joshua is demonized first frame to last.

Saturday Night Live's fake commerical for Homocil (medication for parents of obviously gay children - "cause it's your problem, not theirs") was funnier and more trenchant in one minute than the entirety of Ratliff's muddled mess.

it doesn't look good:

“What was exciting to me was that (the story) sort of played with a primal fear that sort of everyone who thinks of having kids has,” Ratliff said in a separate interview a few weeks earlier. “I came across it when my brother had his first son. I was riding in the car with him, and I was like, ‘I’m so excited. This kid could be a doctor; he could be a lawyer.’ And he was driving, and very solemnly he said, ‘You know, he could be a serial killer.’ It’s true he could be. I think it’s much scarier if there was absolutely no reason why Joshua was the way he was. He was just genetically bad. He had no control over it at all.”