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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 16, 2003)
n ana» FILM ........... V ------ V his British ensemble drama by Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger, makers of the charming 1996 queer indie Boyfriends, has been variously called a “gem,” a “jewel” and “heartfelt.” But gems can be cloudy, jewels can be paste, and heartfelt might mean its time for a trip to the cardiologist. Lawless Heart, which opens May 16 at Cinema 21, is a well-intentioned, well-acted drama that slips too often into cliché and bathos. The film reverses the old trend of killing off the homo at the end by doing it at the begin ning. Much-loved gay restaurateur Stuart (David Coffey) has kicked, and a disparate group of friends, relatives and lovers show up at his funeral, in the process trying to figure out the messes in their own lives. His lover Nick (Tom Hollander) is under standably distraught. His brother-in-law Dan (Bill Nighy) is understandably bored with his hetero life and family. His ne’er-do-well child hood pal Tim (Douglas Henshall) is under standably— well, you get it. They’re all in quiet crisis mode but terribly civilized. Even the homophobe, Dan, isn’t exactly virulent on the issue, contenting him self with making sotto voce catty remarks about queer promiscuity and flightiness— traits he seems poised to embrace himself. (1 know, I know— that’s the point.) Complicating matters is a calm struggle over Stuart’s money, with Dan convincing his Say cheese Lawless Heart should Indeed he illegal by G ary M orris homo-simpatico wife to keep it for them rather than giving it to Nick. The three men’s stories intersect and refract off each other in the film’s ambitious parallel structuring. Dan meets a zany French woman who tries to convince him to get more joie out of his vivre by forsaking convention. Tim moves in on Nick, turning his house of mourning into a raucous party palace, com plete with thieving guests and strangers fuck ing in the bedroom. And in a trope that will annoy some viewers while reassuring others, Nick becomes a heterosexual— sort of. The film has quiet (what else?) moments of humor and charm, as these characters falter toward and away from each other, trying to Poor deceased Stuart's best friend Tim (left) and lover N ick are pretty pathetic mourners in make that crucial human connection. But Law less H eart these moments are fatally undercut by the in 2003 to see a gay man so passive and dis somebody, he apologizes for it later. film’s cheesy impulses. There are endless Kodak engaged, hovering around the action, Nick is the apotheosis of the silent-suffering moments, montages of brave, stoic, teary faces framed against dramatic beach backdrops or, in accepting any kick in the head— whether homo of pop mythology, more comforting to Tim ’s takeover o f his house or the attem pt heterosexuals than he will be credible, or even a scene that screams for the scissors, adults interesting, to homos. J H romping giddily through a playground. Wheeee! ed theft o f his money or a rude worker at his restaurant who he’s too much o f a door Q ueer viewers may find N ick the most G a r y M o r r i s is a writer and reviewer m Portland. mat to fire. Even when he stands up to unsettling character here. It’s a little much Plastic-fantastic! Down with Love tweaks those square movies of yesteryear by C hristopher M c Q uain cocktail-pouring, indulgently ironic replication of the Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies, Down with Love is to Far from Heaven, but with a difference: Where irony would’ve missed the point in Todd H aynes’ 1950s Technicol or revisitation, this film is virtually obliged to laugh at itself; when it comes to this stuff, there was never really much o f a point to begin with. The Day/Hudson movies— like 1959’s Pil low Talk and 1961’s Lover Come Back — were nostalgic fluff, and they probably felt nostalgic even when they were new. They make perfect daytime T V reruns— comfort viewing for when you’ve stayed home sick. Day and Hudson were always verbally sug gestive yet physically quite chaste, forever embroiled in contrived plots and ensconced in plastic-fantastic Manhattan apartments. Here, the dashing Ewan McGregor (as chauvinistic men’s magazine writer and swinging bachelor Catcher Block) and perky Renée Zellweger (as best-selling author Barbara Novak, whose women’s Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger are Down with Love, lib tome, Down with Love, discour opening May 16 ages gals from falling in love with have been snappily choreographed, and the men and favors careers and self-sufficiency) design, cinematography and editing— those play out the same sort of scenario, circa 1962. split-screen telephone conversations!— are for Before Novak and Block can arrive at their the most part such expert re-creations that the inevitable sexy coupledom, there’s conflict, couple’s romantic/sexual pursuits play like tension and denial enough to cause a zillion Warholian pop-art cartoons, making the film a double-entendres, deceptions and misunder laughing-gas success on its own frivolous, fuss- standings. Every line and movement seems to QUEER NIGHT MONDAYS 9PM free terms. It’s insular fun, like a Coen brothers genre-warp minus the bite and obscurity. David Hyde Pierce co-stars as a fastidious neurotic who is therefore mistaken for gay (ha ha), but the real gay subtext runs deeper. In a cruel irony, Hudson was gay but closeted, while McGregor is straight but often unabashed about having on-screen sex with men. The actual queemess, though, lies in the film’s viewpoint. Its conventional, ritualized heterosexuality— “masculinity” and “feminini ty,” quotation marks well intact— in a time capsule and under glass, can be viewed as highly artificial, constructed and humorous. Watching McGregor and Zellweger floating around like two bubbles in a pink glass of fizzy champagne feels simultaneously familiar and rather strange. Down with Love, which was pro duced by the American Beauty people, affection ately tweaks a square movie genre and its prefab notions of sex and gender on the nose, but in both form and content it also performs a swoon ing, hi-fi feat of cultural anthropology. J H C h r is t o p h e r M c Q u a in is a Seattle free-lance writer. 1AM * More than a coffee house, an oasis of experience gifts • live music • organic coffee 1011 NW 16th Ave. (between lovejoy and Marshall) (503)226-1258 wwwlehappy.com All vcitcfarlan All Ifee line. I I cm f* ■ 3560 N Mississippi (at Fremont) 730a-230pTue-Fri,8a-3pSat-Sun 503-281-3560 wwwpurpleparlorcor The Pink Place 7 6 lf> * NE Ghum 505-2627613 www touchstonecoffcehouse com [£H m Serving downtown Portland and adjacent delivery area ww w. fa rm byt cs .co m THREE FRIENDS c75ïTË .E t7oU S H
