The heart of this movie is in the right place, but there are too many plot holes and incongruities for it to rise above anything other than a unique, but flawed film.
We are put in the shoes of Rudy Donatello (Alan Cumming), a part-time drag queen/struggling songwriter, who realizes that a mentally handicapped child in the apartment next to him is not being taken care of properly by his drug addict mother. The night before he discovers this, he has a sexual encounter with Paul (Garret Dillahunt), a man who has come into the bar where Rudy works. It so happens that Paul is a lawyer for the D.A.
The timing of these events is incredibly fortuitous and the film races along before we even have a chance to question things. For example: Rudy takes an immediate interest in the child and determines that he, who basically has no money, can't pay his rent on time, and works at night, is somehow going to take care of this child. When Family Services comes to retrieve Marco after his mother has apparently been picked up on drug or prostitution charges (it wasn't clear), Agent Martinez (Kamala Lopez) rushes the poor boy, trying to get him to gather his clothes and other belongings. But why? A person from Family Services rushing a handicapped child to grab his clothes and get the hell out of the only home he may have known, without any explanation or a shred of sensitivity? This did not ring true.
Also: When Rudy decides that he doesn't think Family Services should take care of Marco, he contacts Paul via the phone number he gave him after their first sexual encounter. He assumes that because Paul is a lawyer, he must also therefore know what the next step is in getting Marco out of Family Services (an organization trained to handle such situations) and back into his loving arms. But why? He makes the assumption that Marco could only possibly end up in a terrible place. It MIGHT be true, but it is still only an assumption. When he calls Paul on the phone, he is obnoxious to his secretary because she won't connect him to Paul instantly. Why would she? Is he really stupid and selfish enough to assume that Paul has no other business other than responding to his fury that must be resolved instantly or he'll go on a rampage? Apparently, because that's Rudy's next step. He charges into the law office where Paul works as if he owned it, demanding to see Paul. Paul says, quite realistically, "What are you doing? This is where I work!" It's great that Rudy wanted to care for Marco, but to treat everyone else along the way like sh*t did not make me sympathetic to his cause.
The B-story was almost laughable. Paul, having heard Rudy's off-key singer-songwriter voice , determines he should makes demos and find work, and buys him an 8-track tape recorder. Rudy records a slow version of the disco hit "Come to Me." While I give the film props for successfully nailing what a songwriter would have to do in the '70s (record on 8-track, get cassettes made, mail them out in padded envelopes and hope for the best), to think that a club owner would give Rudy a shot at fame by offering him two nights a week to sing whatever the hell he wanted... I don't see it. Also, Rudy wasn't what you would call "audience-friendly," so I'd really like to know where the audience (who sits in cold-stone silence during Rudy's performance) came from.
There is a long list of other questionable "moments," but as I lived in L.A. during that time, I can say that the director made every attempt to accurately portray 1979 through clothes, hairstyles (even if that meant questionable wigs for the two male leads), cars, music and vocabulary. The two leads also essentially nailed the personality and philosophy of the two gay men they were portraying from that era. For example, from the first moment Paul parks his car outside the gay club, I could sense the fear, tension, panic, denial, worry... it was all in his face. He wanted to go in, but he was afraid. For Rudy, it was more "F*** all of you. This is who I am, take it or leave it."
In fact, I felt I had been whisked back into time... and, despite all the fun music, cheap food and gas, there was, for gay people, the real fear that their lives could be in danger, their jobs jeopardized and their family relationships challenged by the exposure of the fact that they were gay. This was quite real, and the film nails these moments.
There were other excellent performances in small parts: Clyde Kusatsu as a sympathetic but honest doctor who gives Rudy and Paul the harsh lowdown on Marco's illness, Frances Fisher as a sympathetic but realistic judge, and Don Franklin as a no- nonsense attorney who agrees to handle Rudy and Paul's case.
The key to making it all work was Isaac Levya as Marco, who seemed to clearly understand what was going on and rose to the occasion as an actor and not just as a Down syndrome poster boy/prop. I loved that Rudy and Paul cared enough to take care of him in a loving way, and I loved that Marco realized that someone actually loved him and was willing to help him, since his pathetically misguided mother could not.
I did get sucked into the film and I was moved. But I would like to believe that the filmmakers would now look at the film and say, "Right. We could have done that better." Nonetheless, it was a unique film and I'm glad I saw it.
We are put in the shoes of Rudy Donatello (Alan Cumming), a part-time drag queen/struggling songwriter, who realizes that a mentally handicapped child in the apartment next to him is not being taken care of properly by his drug addict mother. The night before he discovers this, he has a sexual encounter with Paul (Garret Dillahunt), a man who has come into the bar where Rudy works. It so happens that Paul is a lawyer for the D.A.
The timing of these events is incredibly fortuitous and the film races along before we even have a chance to question things. For example: Rudy takes an immediate interest in the child and determines that he, who basically has no money, can't pay his rent on time, and works at night, is somehow going to take care of this child. When Family Services comes to retrieve Marco after his mother has apparently been picked up on drug or prostitution charges (it wasn't clear), Agent Martinez (Kamala Lopez) rushes the poor boy, trying to get him to gather his clothes and other belongings. But why? A person from Family Services rushing a handicapped child to grab his clothes and get the hell out of the only home he may have known, without any explanation or a shred of sensitivity? This did not ring true.
Also: When Rudy decides that he doesn't think Family Services should take care of Marco, he contacts Paul via the phone number he gave him after their first sexual encounter. He assumes that because Paul is a lawyer, he must also therefore know what the next step is in getting Marco out of Family Services (an organization trained to handle such situations) and back into his loving arms. But why? He makes the assumption that Marco could only possibly end up in a terrible place. It MIGHT be true, but it is still only an assumption. When he calls Paul on the phone, he is obnoxious to his secretary because she won't connect him to Paul instantly. Why would she? Is he really stupid and selfish enough to assume that Paul has no other business other than responding to his fury that must be resolved instantly or he'll go on a rampage? Apparently, because that's Rudy's next step. He charges into the law office where Paul works as if he owned it, demanding to see Paul. Paul says, quite realistically, "What are you doing? This is where I work!" It's great that Rudy wanted to care for Marco, but to treat everyone else along the way like sh*t did not make me sympathetic to his cause.
The B-story was almost laughable. Paul, having heard Rudy's off-key singer-songwriter voice , determines he should makes demos and find work, and buys him an 8-track tape recorder. Rudy records a slow version of the disco hit "Come to Me." While I give the film props for successfully nailing what a songwriter would have to do in the '70s (record on 8-track, get cassettes made, mail them out in padded envelopes and hope for the best), to think that a club owner would give Rudy a shot at fame by offering him two nights a week to sing whatever the hell he wanted... I don't see it. Also, Rudy wasn't what you would call "audience-friendly," so I'd really like to know where the audience (who sits in cold-stone silence during Rudy's performance) came from.
There is a long list of other questionable "moments," but as I lived in L.A. during that time, I can say that the director made every attempt to accurately portray 1979 through clothes, hairstyles (even if that meant questionable wigs for the two male leads), cars, music and vocabulary. The two leads also essentially nailed the personality and philosophy of the two gay men they were portraying from that era. For example, from the first moment Paul parks his car outside the gay club, I could sense the fear, tension, panic, denial, worry... it was all in his face. He wanted to go in, but he was afraid. For Rudy, it was more "F*** all of you. This is who I am, take it or leave it."
In fact, I felt I had been whisked back into time... and, despite all the fun music, cheap food and gas, there was, for gay people, the real fear that their lives could be in danger, their jobs jeopardized and their family relationships challenged by the exposure of the fact that they were gay. This was quite real, and the film nails these moments.
There were other excellent performances in small parts: Clyde Kusatsu as a sympathetic but honest doctor who gives Rudy and Paul the harsh lowdown on Marco's illness, Frances Fisher as a sympathetic but realistic judge, and Don Franklin as a no- nonsense attorney who agrees to handle Rudy and Paul's case.
The key to making it all work was Isaac Levya as Marco, who seemed to clearly understand what was going on and rose to the occasion as an actor and not just as a Down syndrome poster boy/prop. I loved that Rudy and Paul cared enough to take care of him in a loving way, and I loved that Marco realized that someone actually loved him and was willing to help him, since his pathetically misguided mother could not.
I did get sucked into the film and I was moved. But I would like to believe that the filmmakers would now look at the film and say, "Right. We could have done that better." Nonetheless, it was a unique film and I'm glad I saw it.