THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB - A ROMANTIC COMEDY (Sony Classics) Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain, Andrew Keegan, Matt McGrath, Ben Weber, Zach Braff, Billy Porter, John Mahoney, Mary McCormack, Nia Long. Screenplay: Greg Berlanti. Producers: Mickey Liddell and Joseph Middleton. Director: Greg Berlanti. MPAA Rating: R (adult themes, profanity, drug use) Running Time: 94 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
The helpful sub-title tagged on to THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB is not the only time you'll be instructed exactly what you're supposed to understand about the film. Throughout this tale of a group of gay West Hollywood friends, rookie writer/director Greg Berlanti includes title cards defining key words and phrases in the characters' lingo. "Meanwhile" is code to draw attention to an attractive guy nearby; a "newbie" is a recently-out young man; "gym bunnies" are the muscle-bound hunks desirable primarily (if not exclusively for sex). It's more than a movie, it's an anthropology class. Welcome to "Intro to Gay 101."
THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB clearly has its broken heart in the right place, but it's too concerned with making statements about its milieu to let the narrative work organically as a character study. And there are lots of characters to study in this ensemble dramedy. Dennis (Timothy Olyphant) is a nice guy trying to make the transition from sex to relationships. Cole (Dean Cain), Dennis's roommate, is an aspiring actor who loves 'em and leaves 'em. Howie (Matt McGrath) has trouble admitting when he loves someone. Patrick (Ben Weber) has trouble loving himself. Taylor (Billy Porter) is the only one in a long-term relationship, though perhaps not for much longer. Benji (Zach Braff) looks for a more party-filled lifestyle. And Jack (John Mahoney) is their collective father-figure, the older restaurateur whose softball team brings them all together.
Those are just the members of the core group of pals, not even counting Patrick's lesbian sister (Mary McCormack) and her partner (Nia Long), or the sweet "newbie" (Andrew Keegan) Dennis takes under his wing. That's a whole heap of humanity to which Berlanti must be attentive, and he's not quite up to the task. Most of his characters remain types throughout, particularly the more effeminate Benji and Taylor. Olyphant (the menacing drug dealer in GO) is surprisingly good as Dennis, the most fully-developed of the characters, and Cain does a nice job of under-playing the philandering Cole. The rest of the actors just don't have enough to work with. In 94 minutes, THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB just can't support a half-dozen major characters.
It's a shame, too, because Berlanti actually has an intriguing concept at the core of his film. Unlike most gay-themed films, this one isn't about coming out, or dealing with the straight world, or AIDS. It's a fairly risky statement about the complications when members of a minority group become so insular that their entire frame of reference becomes their other-ness. Berlanti's portrays his characters alternately coping effectively with their lives and dealing with the constant disappointment of not yet being able to define who they are or what they want. This is a film that's ready to acknowledge that sometimes gay men -- even after they've said, "We're here, we're queer" -- haven't quite gotten used to it.
An idea, unfortunately, isn't enough to sustain a film. While the characters struggle to emerge as individuals from Berlanti's broad thesis, the film struggles to avoid basic miscalculations in structure (case in point: After one character comments about rumors that a famous actor is gay, and another character responds, "Just because he's every gay man's fantasy doesn't mean he's gay," several seconds of idle banter commence before the cutaway to the famous actor in a clinch with another man). There is plenty of tart dialogue, and not all of it is of the bitchy-queen variety. The individual moments of humor and discovery are nice, but they don't add up to enough. THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB is a movie determined to teach you something, rather than a movie about people whose experiences teach you something. A lecture with romance and comedy is still a lecture.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 boys in the bland: 5.
Visit Scott Renshaw's Screening Room http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the Screening Room for details, or reply to this message with subject "Subscribe".
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews