Looking: The Movie

As the film finishes, there’s a desire to puzzle out Patrick’s life a little more, to give him the ending you think he deserves. And maybe a small wish that there would be just a bit more Looking left to see.

It's all very naturalistic, and at times, a little slow. But the affectionate, accepting atmosphere casts a warm glow over everyone.

Fortunately, Looking: The Movie is a lovely coda to a lovely show. It’s not always possible to get a satisfying ending out of television. But this one is also graceful, a closing pirouette that drops the curtain on these characters so that we can let them go, however unwillingly.

Exquisitely nostalgic, it's as comfortable, and as complicated, as a reunion with an old friend, poring over the past in search of its promise and risking the sharp pang of regret.

Haigh and Lannan raise a few compelling questions about our litmus test for happiness, and Groff deserves praise for pulling off a handful of sentimental climaxes. But there's a lingering sense that Looking used its rare second chance to purposefully leave its audience longing for closure that simply doesn't exist. [22/29 Jul 2016, p.96]

It has the show’s virtues--its loose, casual vibe, the gorgeous San Francisco locations and the excellent performances by Mr. Groff and by Murray Bartlett, as Patrick’s levelheaded friend Dom. It also has its faults, including some surprisingly flat acting for an HBO project and a tendency to get dull when the script moves away from the personal and into the larger issues of the gay community. Those glitches are more noticeable in an 85-minute film than they were in half-hour weekly episodes.

As a film, Looking: The Movie is really just a long episode of the series. It isn’t very well structured, is all talk and little drama, and bogs down halfway through because of the same insularity that made the second season pretty much a big shrug.