The
bitchy, bittersweet gay ensemble movie a la The Boys in the Band
or Love! Valour! Compassion!
has become a familiar, if not always welcome, cinematic subgenre. All
the elements of the drama are narrowed and the focus concentrated — the
setting is mostly a single, claustrophobic space; the time is typically
compressed into a single night or a weekend; and the characters are
invariably a handful of old friends in their thirties or older who get
together for what starts as a simple social gathering and ends with a
series of breakups, breakdowns, and reconciliations, with a little
bed-hopping thrown in for good measure. Sexy window dressing often
appears in the form of an unapologetically lustful, younger,
working-class twink-outsider who wreaks havoc on the couples'
relationships.
Boyfriends,
which has all these elements, is a smaller and in some ways sweeter
version of its more blustery cousins. Written, produced, and directed
by Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger, it's one of the better examples in
the canon, wisely taking advantage of what might first strike the eye
as drawbacks. Unlike Boys or Love!,
there's no theatrical pedigree and thus no pre-sold audience for this
British production.
Boyfriends
was shot on a shoestring in a mere 18 days with an unknown cast. But
the lack of familiar faces, plus the intentionally rough lighting and
framing, gives the story an immediacy and freshness that's often
disarming. Most of all, this well-acted film generously makes room for
the complex traits of its couples-in-distress, incorporating sarcasm,
sensuality, and psychodrama with equal skill.The setting of Boyfriends
is an unpretentious country cottage (not reminiscent of the luxurious
restored manse of Love! Valour! Compassion!)
away from the bustle of London. Owner Paul (James Dreyfus) and his
lover Ben (Mark Sands) invite two friends to join them for a pleasant
gay weekend. Will (David Coffey) is a social worker who brings his
latest trick, a whorish 20-year-old former client named Adam (Darren
Petrucci). Goody-goody Matt (Michael Unwin) brings his boyfriend of
three months, the promiscuous, distracted Owen (Andrew Ableson). Amidst
all the cooking, cleaning, and nature walks, each of these three
couples see their relationships, where they exist at all, unraveling
before their eyes.
Will cons the reluctant Adam into coming by telling the younger man,
"It'll give you a chance to see a group of well-adjusted homosexual
men." Adam's life-lesson, however, doesn't quite materialize because
these men are anything but well-adjusted. Aggressive, bitchy Paul is
distressed at the death of his brother, and spends much of his time
haranguing Ben, who retreats into long silences broken by spells of
talking to his plants, which he believes are being systematically
murdered by Paul. "I bet Paul gave you something nasty, did he?" he
whispers to one shriveled specimen. "Did Paul give you something?"
Matt tries to choreograph a picture-book romance with the reluctant
Owen, overpowering him with love and elaborate, beautifully arranged
meals. Owen's response? "You've no idea what it's like being loved by
Matt," he complains to a friend of Matt's whom he's "shagged" in a
woodland tryst. "It's like being smothered by a huge bear. That's what
our sex was — me trying to breathe."
Will and Adam are on even shakier ground than the others, having spent
only a night together before arriving at the cottage. Will's a hopeless
romantic, but Adam is faithful to his own code of
one-night-stands-only. An ingratiating fuckhound who tries to screw his
way through the group, he blithely swaps beds with the frustrated Will
in order to facilitate his amours. Like Randy Becker in Love!
or Robert La Tourneaux in Boys,
he's a working-class outsider disliked by his more bourgeois patrons
and irrationally blamed for their problems. A drunken Paul complains
about him: "You know there are two 't's in 'settee' and he doesn't use
either of them!" In a typical scene, Adam tries to initiate a three-way
with Matt and Owen. When Matt's chilliness ends the lovemaking, Adam
simply shrugs and runs off to bed Ben, who's vulnerable after a breakup
with Paul.
Adam's refusal to take any of the other characters seriously provides
much of the film's comic relief. Interviewed by Paul for a vague video
project, he comments on the "well-adjusted homosexual men" he's met
during the weekend, but the praise quickly slides into vexation and a
younger man's brand of bitchery. "Everyone's been really friendly...
they're a bit mixed up. They've all got problems. They're all quite
old...." After the jilted Will recites a litany of Adam's alleged
crimes — chiefly his refusal to sleep with Will during the trip — an
uncomprehending Adam still can't figure out what he did wrong. "I
brought you a cuppa tea this mornin'," he insists.
Paul and Ben's encounters provide the dark counterpoint to such light
moments. Paul begins the film by dominating and abusing his partner,
but in a series of subtle exchanges, Ben reclaims his power, forcing
his lover to adopt the equivalent of an s&m "safe word" that
Ben
will say when Paul starts becoming abusive. The word? "Pig." Paul and
Ben's relationship personifies the film's theme of the lack of
communication and understanding among these often very talkative
characters. Matt and Owen pick up the theme in Matt's refusal to read
Owen's signals of apathy, and Owen's willingness to use Matt to get to
one of the other men he's pining for. Will suffers from similar
romantic delusions, pursuing Adam in spite of the latter's indifference.
Dinah Washington gives her spiritual blessing to these confused,
endearing characters in the form of a wistful 1940s ballad, "I Wish I
Knew the Name of the Boy of My Dreams," which plays over a montage of
the couples preparing for the trip and again in the closing credits.
But the title is ironic. In Boyfriends, as so
often in life, the characters do know the name of the boy of their dreams, but not much more.
