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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2009)
FEBRUARY 6,2009 Chill Out > ✓ I ' E* players are sort of gay.” Ottar signs up and is soon ' % / y 4 •I I Icelandic soccer hunks heat up the screen; Doris Duke TV movie leaves us out in the cold Eleven Men Out f ÌUStOUt » r*"*“ 1 P ; 5== '■ if * eléve N menoùt ’ closeness. ing For most of us, Iceland conjures up images of, dating Daniel, acute twink player who’s appar The pair’s shared, well, ice. But there’s a lot more happening there, ac ently been had by most of the team members gay destructive weak cording to Eleven Men Out, now available on DVD. and straight. Meanwhile, Dad continues his cam This infectious dramedy puts a new spin on an old paign to “fix” Ottar; his brother tries to help Dad Duke with aplomb, and Ralph represents theme: What if one member of a successful, beloved, “ease into the homo vibe” by renting Philadelphia; Fiennes makes a suitably androgy dark side of their macho sports team turned out to he gay? and Ottar tries to bring his son around, navigate nous, stiff-upper-lipped Lafferty; deep his first gay relationship and figure out if he wants with rare interruptions, rhe film focuses exclu is pretty much all the film offers in the way of to become a big-time queer activist. sively on this odd couple. It works intermittently dramatic complication or tension. Hunky Ottar Thor (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson) is a soccer superstar. During a post-game locker Susan Sarandon channels ness for alcohol the bond—and room scene, a journalist informs Ottar that he’ll The film’s leisurely narrative and occasional as a very small character study of the two, who Director Bob Balaban and screenwriter Hugh he a back-page item in a profile story they’re do sitcom impulses will put off viewers who want are unexpected kindred spirits. The development Costello frustrate by hinting at what makes these ing. Apparently soccer isn’t “sexy" enough to sell a lot of high drama or deep characterizations in of their relationship from a strictly work-related personalities what they are without letting us ex magazines. Irritated, Ottar decides to give the their gay sports movies. But there are enough one to a friendship is the film’s story, and it isn’t perience any of it. (The film’s staid, TV-movie vi journalist a juicy story by abruptly coming out: compensations here to make it worthwhile, not a had one. sual sense and equally blah score don’t help mat “I’m gay. Homosexual,” he says, almost offhand the least being lots of full-frontal nudity, and Duke was a rich and powerful woman, hut ters.) Their fascinating, complex life stories are edly. Typical of the film’s sly humor, the reporter dialogue like the line spoken by one of Ottar’s she experienced so much failure and trauma in related to one another in a few lines of dialogue. whispers to him, “You’re on the cover now.” straight teammates: “What’s so bad about being her love and family lives that she could not he Bernard & Doris feels overstuffed with scenes of gay? Isn’t everyone these days?” emotionally close to anyone until Lafferty ar them talking; perhaps the suggestion is that they rived and proved that someone could care about lived out their lives mainly to relate them to one her without ulterior motives. He begins his serv another and that their friendship superseded ev ice to her as a timid, impeccably self-possessed erything else. But the film lacks anything to con Bernard & Doris, an HBO film about the surpris gay man who is uncloseted yet still overly set vince us of that level of obsession. By the end, it Inevitably, Ottar is hxHed from the team, hut ingly close relationship between tobacco heiress conscious; his blooming out into a comfortable has failed to earn or justify its claustrophobic ap he is quickly taken in by an amateur team struggling Doris Dike and her butler Bernard Lafferty, starts level of flamboyance (including sharing his proach to two people who had so much of interest in the hush leagues. And there’s an extra payoff for out charmingly intimate, only to end up seeming boss’s accessories) under Duke’s tutelage is one Ottar, as the manager tells him, “One or two of the somewhat shallow, smaller in scope than necessary. of the more interesting aspects of their evolv- going on outside their friendship. —Christopher McQuain © Alas, not everyone is as excited about Ottar’s rev —Gary Morris elations. His bigoted father suggests a psychiatrist. His teammates vacillate from “who cares” to “that fairy.” His mom moans a lot. His son freaks out, and his drunken ex-wife just wants to give him a blow job. Bernard fr Doris a gamr of brutal brauty ~ DOORS OPtR KI JMR. FVEin HARTS AT IMI I $12 CENERAI ADMISSION I TICIFTS AT IROWRPAPf RTICUTS COM OR ROSECITYROUERS COM
