When Love Comes

When Love Comes is a lot like its partly pop, partly grunge score: A little raucous about the edges but soft and sentimental at the core. Go-for-broke performances by Rena Owen and fast-tracked Dean O’Gorman, add up to some blistering exchanges...

– Reviewer Glenn Lovell in Variety, 22 February 1999

... the only one we felt could combine true musical ability on the one hand, plus be extravagantly beautiful, talented and sexy on the other.

– Director Garth Maxwell on casting actor Sophia Hawthorne

[Director Garth] Maxwell displays a talent for dialogue and direction —- and also for apt song lyrics — to make these people engaging and worth caring about. [Rena] Owen and [Simon] Prast, both of whom are well-seasoned actors, possess a wit and depth that lend gravity to a film intent on capturing the skittishness and tentativeness that so often accompany matters of the heart.

– Reviewer Kevin Thomas in The Los Angeles Times, 20 August 1999

Six characters in search of ... oh, you know, the usual — love, fame, meaning. The spin here is the sexual spectrum — gay, lesbian, hetero ... But there’s no mealy-mouthed tokenism here; conversely, no in-your-face strutting, either. It’s rare to see a film with gay characters that doesn’t feel obliged to make an issue of gayness, and that’s refreshing.

– Reviewer Helene Wong in The Listener, 11 September 1999