Kept Boy: A Messy Gay Drama About Power and Losing Yourself
Sometimes the luxury life you’re living isn’t a life at all, it’s just a borrowed dream with an expiration date. And when love, vanity, and fear collide, someone always ends up paying the real price. This is a story about losing everything… just in time to find yourself.
Kept Boy (2017): Love, Power, Champagne, and Very Expensive Bad Decisions
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a long-term sugar arrangement starts to creak under the weight of age, ego, and a suspiciously handsome pool boy – Kept Boy has you covered. Not elegantly, not subtly, but covered.
Dennis has spent a decade living the soft life as the pampered “kept” boyfriend of Farleigh, a TV decorating celebrity whose personality swings somewhere between charmingly dramatic and fully catastrophic. Dennis suddenly finds himself approaching thirty, watching his perks evaporate, his Porsche disappear, and his boyfriend flirt professionally with someone who looks like he was carved by a thirsty Instagram algorithm. Enter Jasper – the pool guy slash unexpected design prodigy slash emotional earthquake.
The fun thing about this film is that nobody is fully innocent. Dennis is jealous, insecure, and allergic to employment. Farleigh is manipulative, stressed, and terrified of getting older. Jasper is sweet one moment, suspiciously perfect the next, and then turns out to have a famous, temperamental artist uncle who throws insults like confetti. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.
The middle act – involving a disastrous “romantic” trip to Cartagena – plays like a telenovela written by someone who has only ever heard of relationships through podcasts. There’s jealousy, tequila, emotional monologues, a half-seduction, a semi-love triangle, a possibly-maybe love confession, and a fully unhinged uncle who wields an art lamp like a weapon. Again: that kind of movie.
But beneath all the chaos, Kept Boy does land on something real – the fear of aging out of someone’s life, the panic of building your personality around another person’s money, the hollow glamour of being desired for your youth instead of your character. And the ending, unexpectedly tender, gives Dennis the thing he’s resisted the entire film: a chance to grow up.
Is the film perfect? No. Is it messy? Absolutely. Is it entertaining if you enjoy stories about flawed gay men trying their absolute best to ruin their own lives? Oh, sweetheart – it’s delicious.
And honestly… who among us hasn’t at least once feared being replaced by somebody younger, shinier, or better at maintaining a pool?
