Downtown: A Street Tale (2004)

I first saw this as part of the Covenant House staff based in Los Angeles, California. Seeing this again six years later, it’s easy to see why this independent film was a hard sell to the general public though at the time it was released, did garner some positive reviews. This was a dream project of Joey Delio who starred, wrote and even attracted some names to the project. It is possible that there may have been an intention for a sequel or even a series but as this fell off the radar fairly quickly, Delio hasn’t really done a lot since.

He is introduced in the beginning as a gay hustler. Only his face is shown, grimacing as he’s allowing his client service him in a car. Later, we find he’s living with other young in some vacant building and even allows a new couple stay there. Everyone is trying to find one’s self as they take drugs, eat out of trash cans and there’s even a retarded Hispanic who stutters but somehow remains innocent.

Genevieve Bujold, still quite slim though her face lines show she’s well past her seventies-mid eighties heyday, plays a very straight forward no nonsense approach social worker who strives to make sense of all the madness around her. Another name from the past, John Savage has a small part of being in a wheelchair and who eventually gets robbed by the street kids.

The scene that really stands out is when a lit fused white drug addict stabs his Cuban girlfriend with her own knife. Finding out that the girl of the visiting couple is pregnant is quite anti-climatic after that. The man doesn’t want to face responsibility so Bujold takes her under his wing. Though I give the movie kudos for bringing really desperate people on the screen, it’s main fault for me is that I don’t really feel sympathetic to any of them.

And perhaps that’s the point. How can one ask society, most who are afraid of their types anyway, to care about a population that has a hard time for themselves?

The soundtrack does have songs performed by Irene Cara and Petula Clark who had a big sixties hit called “Downtown”. Six years later and the homeless problems still continue.

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