Beatific Vision (U.S. 2008)

The Gist:

Michael has little time to grieve when his lover Chad dies, because "Angel Chad" (an all seeing/knowing voice) immediately comes back from the dead to cajole "guide" Michael to what dead angel Chad sees as best for him, a new unconventional family.

Comments with major spoilers:

Beatific vision is a part of Christian theology, overly simplified, it's sort of seeing /communing with god. In the case of the movie, the communing is not with god, but with the voice of dead Chad, and it's not so much communing as much as just dead Chad manipulating Michael into what dead Chad sees as best for Michael, a sexual triad relationship with two men, who have a familial relationship with two women, Michael's best friend and her girlfriend, the former wife of one of Michael's two new lovers. 

According to the IMDB plot summary, there's more details, such as dead Chad having died from brain cancer (I must have missed the line explaining this), and that dead Chad having seen Michael's future, decides to intervene. Another line of dialogue I must have missed, because from the movie I saw, it was pretty clear that controlling Michael's life was Chad's intent, even before he died. Coming back after death just made the job easier. 

It seems that the idea was to make a movie about spirituality, but what it ends up being is a weird thing, where the dead come back to control your life, which I don't think technically counts as spiritual. 

With a leather daddy with daddy issues, a newly out overly shy awkward therapist, a bold young student of human sexuality, a lesbian best friend, the newly out lesbian ex-wife of the newly out overly shy awkward therapist, and the bossy dead “angel” lover of the leather daddy with daddy issues, this movie has a lot of oddity going on, and in the end it isn’t able to make it work. Put more simply, it’s bad.  

Women:

Two (out of a cast of five).

People of color:

All the men. Well, all the living men anyway.

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes

• Director: Sountru
• Writer: Sountru
• Actors: Joe Higachi, Norm Munoz, Marianne Shine, Michael Vega
• 70 min
• IMDB