Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Well acted, well made, believable movie. Apparently didn't get the wide distribution it deserved. Treated its subject with honesty humor, and seriousness. If it was a boy-girl movie would, unfortunately, have received more of an audience, but would have lacked the punch that it being a male-male relationship afforded. A sure sign that homosexual subject that would have been taboo a a couple of decades back now treated openly. Kudos.

I was moved to comment on this unusually poignant story. The main characters are so well and naturally drawn and so well played, I felt as if I knew them personally by the end of the movie. From the very beginning, the dialogue is clever, but there is more than cleverness - there is real talent in the writing and an authenticity I found haunting. There was also real plausibility within the comedy's plot; even the more unlikely twists and turns are believable. It's the writing of Dan Bucantinsky (not just his on-screen character) that made me want to see more of his work. This is a really good, heart-warming effort, with wonderful acting from each of the four main characters.

What a refreshing movie this is! What I mean by that is here is a movie about gay men that contains people I want to meet, that I would want to be friends with. Eli and Tom are two men that are thrown together due to the fact that their respective (straight) best friends would like to build on their "meet cute". And how cute are these best friends? They are also portrayed as refreshingly normal, unlike other gay themed movies I have seen that shoehorn straight people into the movie in order to try to get mass appeal but only end up embarrassing those straight people who would want to see the movie. But I digress, The movie starts with the audience meeting two men. Eli, who is off to the AIDS test clinic, and Tom, who is off to an AA meeting. As each are at there respective appointments, the past is presented to show their relationship. The men don't get a meet cute, but their respective best friends do, in a furniture store where they bond over a "buttercup" love seat. The two then decide to use their respective gay best friends, supposedly to get them together, but actually to further their own budding romance. What an awkward first date the men have! Eli hopes his date doesn't smoke, so of course when we see them together that's what Tom does best. That and drink Absolute martinis. From there it is one awkward meeting for them after the other, both fighting an attraction they both will admit only to themselves. The families of each man are dysfunctional. I actually was far more embarrassed by Eli's, a couple of doctors who subject their small children to uncomfortable games about their feelings and only use dolls to get the kids comfortable with using correct medical terms for sexual organs. Christina Ricci gives a wonderful performance as Eli's seeming normal sister. Our meeting of Tom's parents is uncomfortable for completely different reasons, though probably much more common to many of us. The parents who suffocate themselves over what their dysfunctional lives have foisted on their children. At the wedding of the straight friends, the men finally realize what they mean to each other. I have probably left out a lot, but I think I am a little too emotionally attracted to this movie to be objective. By the time the men are dancing together and the closing song, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by the Jayhawks started playing, I was actually cheering through my tears. No, this may not be a great movie, but it is one I will turn to again and again, to meet and spend time with comfortable old friends.

This movie gets an "excellent" rating from me because there is attention paid to real character development -- great screenplay. Equal attention has been paid to the characters themselves by actors who understand what they're talking about, and who convey that understanding believably -- the honesty is refreshing. One cannot know the extent to which the director was very detailed in getting the performances that she wanted or whether she fundamentally trusted her actors' intelligence to come through; with this cast and with this screenplay, I'd bet the latter. One so wishes for more movies that treat these themes as intelligently and as engagingly as this one does. One grows so weary of wading through movies with cardboard characters, actors, dialogue, and situations. This movie, though, was a pleasure. My thanks to one and all for having given it.