Bedrooms
and Hallways
(1999)
Just
last week I was bitching about how there are no good
bisexual movies and here is one. Sure, it's not the
perfect essay on the nature of bisexuality. Well, it's
not the story of a happy bisexual exactly. But it has
characters in it's plot that switch between heterosexual
and homosexual liaisons and vice-versa. And everyone
seems to end up happy by the film's end, so that's good
too.
The film is really just a good old fashioned bedroom
farce all tarted up for the 90's with lots of Noel Coward
plot twists and modern angst over sexual confusion tossed
in for good measure. I liked it because it has both
straight characters who experiment with gay sex and
gay characters who try their hand at experiencing heterosexual
love as well. Director Rose Troche ("Go Fish")
working with a script by Robert Farrar ("The Man
Who Knew Too Little") may try to have her cake
and eat it too, but she's got the weight of all the
gay watchdog and political groups on her heels, looking
for something to bitch about. Let's face it, you can't
make good gay films these days, it's rather difficult.
Gay people can't do bad things, that's negative stereotypes,
they can't be goody-goody, that's damn boring, and they
can't have sex (stereotype), the can't not have sex
(implies that gay sex is not viable), they can't have
happy sex (what about AIDS), they can't have bad sex
(stereotypes), they can't do anything really. But Farrar
has fashioned a script that solidly and realistically
navigates it's way through all these political minefields
and still brings forth something fun, clever, humorous
and sweet to watch. Quite a great accomplishment
really.
The
acting and the characters are such fun. They may be
a little too clever and modern for reality, but that's
just the window dressing. In fact, they are solid, important
and complex beings searching for affection and understanding
in the modern world. In the film, we get all kinds of
wonderful plotlines, a gay couple who must break free
of a relationship that is purely physical, a few straight
man questioning their sexuality and experimenting
with gay sex, a gay man finding himself attracted to
an old girlfriend and acting on those feelings, a woman
scorned by a male lover who has turned to men and then
finding love herself in the process, and even a male
and female couple or two hooking up and exploring their
own sexuality. It's great fun even if it amounts to
a hell of a lot of shagging going on!
The plot has the wonderful comic device of exploring
the dynamics of a men's group. I will admit that this
part of the film troubled me some as two of the men
in the group, in exploring their masculinity, turned
to homosexuality, but perhaps this is an engenderment
of their growing comfortable in their sexual selves.
The film also uses the men's group for too much humor,
wanting us to laugh at the way it mocks primal scream
therapy and new age psychiatric therapies. I am
of the feeling that any method which allows one to examine
and explore his true self as a person, male or female,
is of great import, and the impetus for this exploration
is of no matter. So to laugh at all the trappings of
new age therapy, "truth stones" and drum pounding
and "wild man" camping just serves to devalue
it's true worth. These scenes were not funny to me so
much as contrived. Still, the film, if examined closely,
actually seems to agree that these trappings do act
as a force for good. The men in the group do examine
their lifes and their selves and come to realizations
and conclusions. It just tried to be too witty and too
clever in the process.
"Bedrooms and Hallways" won't convert people.
That's not what it's about. It's for gay and bisexual
people. Finally, we get to see some characters who are
healthy in their struggle to understand and discover
their sexual selves. Whether gay, bi, or straight. And
that makes this film as important as it is fun.
Note: With Kevin McKidd ("Trainspotting"),
Simon Callow, James Purefoy and Hugo Weaving.
|
Report
Card
Script:
A-
Acting: A+
Cinematography\Lighting: C
Special Effects\Make Up: B+
Music: A
Final
Grade: A-
|
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