It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Inspired by Tom Hanks's tearful speech when he accepted his 1994 Oscar (for his role in Philadelphia), in which he mentioned his high-school drama coach Rawley Farnsworth, and his former classmate John Gilkerson, "two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with." Comes on of Hollywood's first mainstream "Gay" comedies. Plot In A Paragraph: Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) is a high school teacher with an attractive fiancé named Emily and respect from everyone. Everything changes in one night when a former high school student of his, named Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), now a famous Hollywood actor wins an Academy Award for his portrayal of a homosexual army soldier and 'outs' Howard Brackett as his inspiration for his role. The media circus immediately begins as Howard desperately keeps protesting that he is not gay and that the whole thing is a simple misunderstanding. All the cast do a great job, with the stand outs being Kevin Kline and Joan Cusack. Matt Dillon, Tom Selleck, Debbie Reynolds, Bob Newhart, and Wilford Brimley all give great support, and are a lot of fun. Joan Cusack (Whom I have loved since I first saw "Working Girl") was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance, and can consider herself unlucky to lose to Kim Basinger for "L.A Confidential". The end is a bit weak, but that is only nit picking!! And it does not spoil the enjoyment of this movie.

A commercially successful mainstream out-of-the-closet comedy in the 90s mocking the stereotypical homophobia in the provincial mid western America, directed by the voice-of-Yoda, Frank Oz (THE STEPFORD WIVIES 2004, 4/10), and stars a dapper Kevin Cline as Howard Brackett, a high school English teacher being outed on the 68th Oscar ceremony by his former student Cameron Drake (Dillon) in his BEST ACTOR acceptance speech, in addition to that, he is scheduled to marry his longtime fiancée Emily (Cusack) within three days. So Howard instantly not only becomes the headline personality at Greenleaf, Indiana, but also attracts Hollywood media, especially from the outed-gay anchorman Peter Malloy (Selleck). In order to quench everyone's worries and inquisitiveness, Howard's denial is ostensibly plausible, he is at most metro-sexual and painstakingly attempt to shatter the hackneyed idea of gay men to be masculine with the collateral damages including Barbra Streisand's not-so-productive filmography and the heterosexual men's privilege to dance. Yet, the crunch arrives in the big wedding day where self-deception can not hold back the truth, Emily indignantly runs away from the alter in her wedding dress and apart from that, everyone else seems quite calm-cool-and-collected. The farce then takes a detour into a self-imposed queer-in-distress scenario for Howard in the third act after his spunky and honest coming-out, when he is fired for his sexuality and waiting hapless for the unanimous succour from his family, students and friends, which righteously secure a feel good ending to bolster the right opinion, one might appreciate the effort and motivation, but honestly speaking the entire grandstanding is very much contrived and cringe-inducing. The biggest selling point is Joan Cusack's second Oscar nomination for a genre rarely gets the attention of Academy members, and an outstanding feat for a comedienne to replicate her recognition again after WORKING GIRL (1988, 7/10). Cusack never shies away from being an unassuming wallflower and her predicament in the film does lift the awareness of the unethical cost for a closeted gay man to marry an unwitting woman. Kline is quite competent as well, suave but internally is waiting to be swept off his feet by a kiss from a man, pitifully there aren't ample room for the romance between him and Peter, but his dancing routine and spontaneous respondence showcase he is an ingrained comedian on precise tempo. The story is elicited by the real event of Tom Hanks' Oscar acceptance speech for PHILADELPHIA (1993) where he openly thanked his gay teacher, and the rest is the screenwriter Paul Rudnick's wide fantasy, anyhow, it is pretty impressive to realize how our world-view has evolved towards homosexuality in a measly 17 years purely gaging by how dated this film looks, still, in the much conservative corners of the world, it will be a long expedition to indoctrinate the equality against wrongly-rooted prejudice, religious narrow-mindedness and man's primal fear of wanting virility.

This is one of the most horrible films I've ever seen. It's like watching a black liberation film from the 1920s. Yes massah, I is a real person too. I would say I threw up in my mouth a little, but it was frequent enough that I actually had to use the toilet.In all seriousness, I suppose this is reflective of how sad mainstream America was about gay issues only 15 years ago. Everything about the film is trite and clichéd. The writer (who is gay I guess) and Frank Oz directing are the definition of cowardly. For Christ's sake, the ending is supposed to be funny because you think there might be a gay wedding but, it's just the straight parents renewing their nuptials (haha! gotcha! you can relax). The fact that the cast includes so many famous names only serves to embarrass them, who I'm sure considered themselves at the vanguard for courageously accepting the roles. Congratulations Bob Newheart, you're not so old after all! It's a lesson about tepid pedantry. Anyway, I'm off to stab myself in the throat. Goodbye, cruel world.

What a waste of time this movie is. The acting was good, but so what? It had me grimacing at most of the unfunny dialogue and stereotypical characters. According to this movie, any man who likes Barbara Striesand movies is gay, and they brought this up three times or more, I mean, sheesh, it wasn't funny the first time, why repeat the "joke"?The whole movie just seemed like some cut and paste scenario we've seen it so many times before, town gets outraged about the main character for whatever reason, then, oh, surprise surprise, they all come round and stand by him in the end, he's a really great guy, we all love him, so what if he's gay, blah blah blah blah blah.... So corny, so boring.