QFest Shorts

Reviews for Philadelphia QFest 2010, July 8-19

Venue key: RE=Ritz East, 125 S. Second St., 215-925-7900 | RB=Ritz at the Bourse, 400 Ranstead St., 215-925-7900 Following are reviews of movies premiéring at QFest, July 8-18. Up to the day of the show, tickets may be purchased in person at TLA Video locations (noon-9 p.m.); by phone at 267-765-9800, ext. 4, or online at qfest.com; by noon Monday through Friday and 9 p.m. the previous night on Saturday and Sunday. Same-day tickets are available at the screening venue. Tickets are $10. recommended. highly recommended.

Adrift | Alex and Leo | Bear City | Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride | Bloominton | David's Birthday | Dearest Mother | Deleted Scenes | Eyes Wide Open | Fashion Victim | Fiona's Script | From Beginning to End | Handsome Harry | The Last Summer of La Boyita | Leo's Room | Le Tigre on Tour | A Marine Story | My Normal | The Owls | Piggies | The People I've Slept With | Release | The Secret Diary of Miss Anne Lister | Seeing Heaven | Shut Up and Kiss Me | Straight and Butch | Strapped | Taqwacore: the Birth of Punk Islam | Violet Tendencies | Wild About Harry | You Should Meet My Son!

Adrift

The title is a particularly apt descriptor for this meandering slow-simmer of a Hanoi-set marriage-and-manners drama. Adrift centers on simple Duyen and worldly, melancholy writer Cam. When Duyen's marriage to man-child Hai remains unconsummated weeks later, best girlfriend Cam instructs her to deliver a letter to Tho, a lady's man Cam seems to pine for herself. And even though Tho forces himself on Duyen, she later accepts a job, at Cam's urging, with Tho, with whom she has her first sexual encounter. Thus awakened, Duyen seems as despondent as Cam. Adrift is doused in Hanoi's heavy rains, but the glacial pace is a fitting analog for the shifting mores in socially conservative Vietnam. Though rife with sexual tension, there are no gay or lesbian themes - other than perhaps the unspoken fact that Cam and Duyen would be better off with each other than with any of the men in their lives. -Brian Howard (RB, 7/14, 5:15pm)

Alex and Leo

This amiable German romantic comedy has the newly out and single Leo (Marcel Schlutt) trying to be assertive like a lion. His prey is Alex (André Schneider, who also penned the screenplay). Yet Alex is wary of relationships; he just discovered his boyfriend cheating on him. As the title guys keep meeting and mooning or moping about, everyone sees how perfect Alex and Leo are for each other. So there's more than a little frustration — playing out as mild sexual tension — that Alex consistently resists his potential new boyfriend's various attempts at seduction. Rather than provide any insights into dating or gay relationships, Alex and Leo takes the simplistic approach that happiness is simply a matter of getting laid. That said, while there is little actual sex in the film there are some entertaining moments, such as a party featuring the irresistible Schlutt in a revealing bikini. -Gary M. Kramer (RE, 7/13, 5pm; RB, 7/18, 7:30pm)

BearCity

So. Many. Bear. Puns. But what else could you expect from BearCity, a Sex and the City-esque look at the bear community in New York City? Written by QFest programmer Lawrence Ferber, BearCity follows Tyler (Joe Conti), a twink who must come out of the closet again, this time as a lover of all things pudgy and hairy. He finds solace with Fred (Brian Keane) and Brent (Stephen Guarino, The Big Gay Sketch Show), a married couple who can't decide whether to open up their relationship (their attempt is gut-busting). All is well until Tyler falls for the hot-to-trot Roger (Gerald McCullouch), who refuses to accept his desire for the rail-thin Tyler because it will totally mess with his rep. Although adorable and better than the average QFest rom-com, the crush interaction played out while bowling is a little much. -Molly Eichel (RE, 7/9, 7pm; RE, 7/10, 5pm)

Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride

"A pride parade isn't the end of our struggle," says Ken Coolen, organizer for the Vancouver Pride Parade. "It's just the beginning." Coolen's an earnest and charming guide for this documentary's survey of pride demonstrations around the world. Noting the legislative advances in Canada and the U.S., Coolen heads to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, director of Equal Ground, points out that homosexuality remains a criminal offense (as it is in more than 70 nations). In Moscow, he meets with Tomasz Baczkowski, who organizes pride displays even when the mayor denies legal permits. And in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where millions march on Pride Day, Coolen sees that massive street parties create their own risks. Heartening and vibrant, the documentary bounces from place to place, using split screens to show the hard and often clever work of queers trying to change attitudes in places where they can be arrested, beaten and killed for being out. -Cindy Fuchs (RB, 7/11, 5pm)

Bloomington

Former child television star Jackie Kirk (Sarah Stouffer) is finally attempting to live a normal life, leaving her Hollywood home for a Midwestern college. But her stardom isn't that easy to shake, leading to uneasy relations with her fellow students, made worse when Jackie becomes the latest paramour of the campus's infamously icy abnormal psych prof, Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee). Despite making a habit of seducing her young female students (she aggressively comes on to Jackie within minutes of their first meeting), Stark is never depicted as predatory, and the affair unfolds as a bittersweet coming-of-age tale rather than a sordid scandal. Writer-director Fernanda Cardoso is a veteran reality-TV editor and swathes her characters' love-hate tangle with fame in a wistful glow, but the languid pace and bland supporting cast lend the film a "Very Special Episode" air. -Shaun Brady (RE, 7/17, 7:15pm; RB, 7/18, 2:30pm)

David's Birthday

Argue if you like, but reading too much into LGBTQ issues in David's Birthday is a fool's game. Yes, married man Matteo (Massimo Poggio) falls in love with his friends' grotesquely well-sculpted son David (Thyago Alves) while on vacation. And the film plays out that premise, proving that attempts to fight your natural sexuality result in destruction and guilt. But honestly, that's queer cinema pablum - a seemingly de rigueur diversion in this kind of drama. No, David's Birthday, as its classical and mythical allusions point out, is really about how star-crossed, devastating love often found in art lives up to its hype only when it stays in that world, where it can't hurt us. Out here, someone's getting burned. Nice idea. Unfortunately, that nice idea is buried in writing, production and acting that is in every way unremarkable; David's Birthday is only OK. -Eric Henney (RE; 7/17, 12:15pm; RE, 7/18, 7pm)

Dearest Mother

Growing up queer in Spain wasn't always easy for Alfredito. Now in his 60s, he chats candidly with a statue of a black Virgin Mary in the church as he cleans and prepares its clothes for procession. The film seamlessly weaves vignettes of Alfredito's past - evading his abusive father, losing his virginity and a recurring scene of a young Alfredito running to his mother after a violent storm. The tempest becomes a symbol of whatever challenges Alfredito faces, whether it's being drafted into the military, bullied by boys or beaten by his father. The film hits the mark when Alfredito grows into Alfredo and realizes that his mother won't always be there to comfort him. Alfredito is a charming construction, and the three actors who play him in different stages of his life consistently portray that bubbly personality. At times, the movie feels like an overly emotional telenovela, but overall, Dearest Mother is simple and heartwarming. -Neal Santos (RB, 7/11, 12:15pm; RB, 7/12, 9:15pm)

Deleted Scenes

Fest mainstay Todd Verow structures his latest DIY production as a series of outtakes from an "unfinished, untitled dysfunctional-relationship drama." The result, presented as a series of numbered, titled fragments that begin with a "Play All" command and culminate with an alternate ending, isn't as nonlinear as the approach suggests, though it does offer some cover to the no-budgeter's erratic quality and often inaudible dialogue. Of course, that doesn't explain away those characteristics in every other film Verow has made over the past decade and a half - he's a filmmaker who earns almost grudging respect for his obstinate refusal (or simple inability) to improve the production value of his efforts. Here that uneven eye is applied to a sometimes tender, often rough love story peppered with plenty of raw sex, which stretches the concept a bit, as it's hard to believe Verow has ever discarded a frame of such footage. -S.B. (RE, 7/15, 9:15pm; RB, 7/17, 2:15pm)

Eyes Wide Open

In his debut film, Haim Tabakman gracefully tackles the inherent discrepancy between homosexuality and religious orthodoxy, without choosing a side. Eyes Wide Open details the forbidden relationship between Aaron, a pensive family man and butcher, and his young apprentice, Ezri, in Jewish-Orthodox Jerusalem. For Aaron, his newfound proclivities are as much a part of him as his religious beliefs. Thus, the very thing that complicates his relationship is the filter by which he understands it. Tabakman is able to present this issue without delineating it too plainly - scenes of Talmudic study frame Aaron's inner conflict, as does sparse dialogue coupled with intensely emotional acting. But neither device directly addresses it. However, the film is not just for Jewish and/or gay audiences. As Aaron begins to lose control of the things he once held so dear, he must ask himself an important and universal question: Should social order be sacrificed for one's own happiness? -Matthew Cahn (RE, 7/10, 7:15pm; 7/14, 7pm)

Fashion Victim

Charlie Chaplin wasn't always able to strike the delicate balance between comedy and commentary in his political films, but managed often enough to forgive his occasional lapses into sanctimony. French writer-director-actor Gérard Jugnot is no Chaplin, although Fashion Victim certainly catches him trying. Jugnot stars as a 16th-century fashion designer sent by the French king to Inquisition-terrorized Spain, unwisely accompanied by an entourage that includes an Arab, a Jew, a bomb-wielding Protestant and at least one "sodomite." The resultant broadly played antics allow plenty of opportunity for pratfalls, anachronisms, mincing and speechifying about religious intolerance, but little in the way of actual laughs or drama. In case the present-day parallels aren't quite evident enough from the explicit preachiness (and a quick shot, in the closing moments, toward our own shores), Jugnot begins the film with a hit-you-over-the-head Sacha Guitry quote. -S.B. (RE, 7/11, 9:30pm; RE, 7/13, 7:15pm)

Fiona's Script

The problem with Fiona's Script, a drama about the bisexual title character's missteps after a bad breakup, is that it feels too much like real life, without possessing the charms of a bawdy reality show or a manicured doc. Most of the dialogue is small talk, the characters drudge through everyday minutiae and Fiona never finds meaning from her failed relationship. Yet for all her abrasive realness, she is still as flat as a middle-schooler's oboe. We don't know why Fiona is traumatized by her ex-boyfriend, nor the reason she's neurotically nervous around her new lady-beau, L. It's too bad, because some of the film's delightfully lazy, saturated, slow-motion shots are so beautiful they mirror those in another visual stunner, Elephant. -Holly Otterbein (RB, 7/9, 5:30pm; RE, 7/12, 7pm)

From Beginning to End

Thomás and Francisco are half brothers who share an uncommonly close relationship - so close that, as they grow older (specifically, old enough that the child actors portraying them can be replaced with well-built twentysomethings Rafael Cardoso and João Gabriel Vasconcellos, respectively), the relationship turns sexual. Oddly, no one seems to object much - their shared mother is tacitly accepting if not outright encouraging. Francisco's father turns up long enough to express misgivings at their initial intimacy, then disappears. Writer/director Aluisio Abranches simply uses their blood ties to plaster a façade of taboo over a progression of scenes more concerned with attractive guys making out against a variety of picturesque backdrops - from splashing in the ocean to dancing in an Argentinean nightclub. But the scenes proceed with all the momentum and substance of flipping through this year's Hot Incestuous Boys of Brazil calendar. -S.B. (RE, 7/15, 7pm; RE, 7/17, 2:30pm)

Handsome Harry

Handsome Harry is at odds with itself. It's beautifully crafted yet, at times, uncomfortable and ugly. The cinematography is expressive but staid. The writing, which chronicles Harry's (Jamey Sheridan) attempt to come to terms with the consequences of a long-ago betrayal, teeters between authentic emotion and melodrama. Even the actors, who give solid performances, roil up against each other. Special mention goes to Sheridan, whose biggest accomplishment was to make me wonder why his career isn't bigger. The road-movie structure seems like an easy way out and the stern dissection of American machismo and male sexuality that is director Bette Gordon's bread-and-butter feels like finger-wagging. What saves the movie is its ambivalence over personal redemption, which is here depicted as tough and unguaranteed. Harsh, maybe. But it makes the film empathetic. -E.H. (RB, 7/11, 7:30pm; RE, 7/14, 5pm)

The Last Summer of La Boyita

Annoyed by her growth-spurting older sister, little Jorgelina (played with surprising depth by actor Guadalupe Alonso) decides to skip the beach and spend her summer out in the country. But her Tom-and-Becky adventures with shy farmhand Mario slowly become strained thanks to a gently unraveling gender-identity plot twist. Like any good coming-of-age drama, Julia Solomonoff's Boyita can trigger pangs of instant nostalgia with the tiniest of gestures: a galloping horse, an acoustic guitar ponderously strummed, a plastic toy cast aside on a bed. By the end credits I'd forgotten I wasn't once a little girl in Argentina. Short, sad and cinematographically sublime, this film deserves an audience. -Patrick Rapa (RB, 7/10, 3pm)

Leo's Room

Leo's Room is a charming coming-of-age film buoyed by a well-written, sparse script and strong soundtrack. Leo (Martín Rodríguez), the self-explorer, is weighed down by his true desire to be with men (mostly conveyed through long silences and heavy sighs), but continues to parade his hetero dating partners around in public. Leo's stoner housemate is the only one who gets a glimpse of his double life - and he couldn't care less who his roomie decides to screw. Rodríguez makes Leo real and sympathetic; Uruguayan director Enrique Buchichio keeps the ambience and atmosphere heavy without being overbearing. -Janey Zitomer (RE, 7/12, 7:15pm; RE, 7/14, 5pm)

Le Tigre on Tour

The best rock 'n' roll docs are fraught with conflict. But Le Tigre on Tour, chronicling the 2004 farewell tour by the band with the roller-skate jams, is devoid of any (save for de facto leader Kathleen Hanna's agita about making fun of Slipknot). So what's left? A portrait of three women who get along freakishly well, giggle and rock the face off anyone who comes to see them. Well-shot performances of songs like "TKO" and "Deceptacon" are interspersed with talking-head moments by Hanna, Johanna Fateman and "the dyke with the moustache" JD Samson reflecting on the band's power, and scenes of them fooling around in the hotel gym and getting interviewed one. more. time. about how Hanna knew Kurt Cobain. But there's no mention of their major-label switch for their final album, This Island, or why they decided to end the band in the first place. Someone who doesn't dig Le Tigre will be lost to the power of the band and this movie, but riot grrrls - both current and lapsed - can't help but get that tingly teenage sensation every time the ladies start to play. -M.E. (RB, 7/13, 7:30pm)

A Marine Story

Ned Farr's uneven drama about a lesbian Marine booted from the Corps probably won't turn into a milestone in the war against "don't ask, don't tell," but it does treat the subject with rare urgency and heart. Tough-as-nails Alex (Dreya Weber) flashes back to the unfair circumstances of her honorable discharge while trying to return to civilian life in her one-pub, one-sheriff California town. Of course, some local rednecks and methheads take exception to the presence of this smart-talkin', hard-punchin' broad. And when the aforementioned sheriff asks Alex to put local ne'er-do-well Saffron (Paris Pickard - a rumored Paris Hilton hook-up for a hot minute) through a sweaty tough-love boot camp, well, the movie gets moving in interesting and occasionally unpredictable ways. A Marine Story is smart and good-looking, but suffers from its claustrophobic mood and a sometimes suffocating seriousness. But hey, that's life in a small town. -P.R. (RE, 7/9, 7:30pm; RE, 7/11, 2:30pm)

My Normal

Natalie (Nicole LaLiberte), with her porcelain skin and fiery red hair, is one of the most successful dominatrices in New York City. But when she gets home from tying up older business execs, she's like anyone else: She likes to relax with a joint, gossip with her girls, make films and go dancing. At a club, she meets the sultry Jasmine (Dawn Noel Pignuola), who quickly enters her life romantically and then disappears. Jasmine is uncomfortable with Natalie's profession, leading Natalie to reevaluate her life. LaLiberte imbues Natalie with strength, and keeps her grounded and human — but her character is not given closure and My Normal ends too abruptly. -Stephen Rose (RE; 7/10, 4:45pm; RE, 7/11, 12:15pm)

The Owls

Opening with a short series of old-school demonstrations - anti-war, pro-queer - Cheryl Dunye's new film is not what it seems. That is, it's not just the story of middle-aging lesbians, former activists - MJ (V.S. Brodie) and Carol (Dunye) and band members Iris (Guinevere Turner) and Lily (Lisa Gornick) - still sorting out what's at stake in their relationships. And it's not just about their efforts to cover up the murder of a visitor a year before. It's also a frankly brilliant breakdown of gender roles (femme and butch), defined by different generations: When Iraq war vet Skye (Skyler Cooper) arrives, asking questions and unsettling their dynamics, the film becomes something else again. Best of all, it's a Dunyementary: The actors break out of character to discuss what they're doing. As everyone watches herself and each other, you're caught watching too. Scripted by Sarah Schulman, this meditation on performances and expectations will make you think about all of it again. -C.F. (RE, 7/16, 7:15pm; RB, 7/18, 12:15pm)

Piggies

Tomek (Filip Garbacz) is a baby-faced, sharp 14-year-old living in a poor border town in Poland. He predictably goes through standard coming-of-age issues: attempting to please argumentative parents, doing homework for other people and winning the affection of Marta, a simple girl focused on material wealth. But the lure of the affluent German lifestyle is too tempting for Tomek, and one poor decision leads to another as he spirals into "swinki," or prostitution and boy-trafficking. That's a heavy topic, emotionally, but Piggies never delves deeply into it. Instead, director Robert Glinski skillfully depicts his controversial subject matter without shoving it in our faces, balancing what to show with what not to. -N.S. ( RB, 7/10, 12:30pm; RB, 7/13, 5:15pm)

The People I've Slept With

Screwing dozens of people within the past two months has put mommy-to-be Angela (Karin Anna Cheung) in a bit of a debacle. With the help of her best gay friend, Gabriel (Wilson Cruz, aka Rickie from My So-Called Life), she embarks on a game of who's left standing. With five candidates, including Mr. Hottie, 5-Second Guy and Mystery Man (played by everyone's favorite blue Power Ranger, Archie Kao), Angela must do right by her family, and herself, by finding her baby's daddy. While director Quentin Lee does his best to liven a somewhat exhausted plot, areas of the script play out like an episode of Grey's Anatomy, right down to a Say Anything... reference. In the end, it is Cheung and Cruz's chemistry as BFFs that saves the film. -Lauren Macaluso (RB, 7/9, 7:45 pm; RE, 7/12, 5pm)

Release

An incarcerated priest (Daniel Brocklebank) falls in love with a prison guard (Garry Summers) in Release in this mediocre flick. It's adequately executed and, save a few forced love scenes, competently acted. It's even occasionally clever in the way it highlights our prejudices through the trap-like way it doles out backstory. And Release is genuinely progressive in portraying a priest who's comfortable with his homosexuality. But none of this is particularly important to the plodding story. In 87 minutes, it touches on enough material for a couple of films and fails to handle any of it deeply. Character motivation seems like an afterthought, and too much energy is spent on cliché dream sequences, glib symbols and awful lines like "My soul is saved. By love." -E.H. (RE, 7/16, 9:30pm; RB, 7/17, 5:15pm)

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

The requisite historical lesbian drama in this year's QFest is James Kent's adaptation of the 19th-century diaries of Anne Lister (played by a strong Maxine Peake), who meticulously chronicled her life in partially coded journals. Lister's is a classic story: Anne falls in love with Mariana (Anna Madeley), who returns her affections only until it is inconvenient; then she marries a rich landowner (Michael Culkin). After first assuring Anne they'll reunite when her much-older husband dies, Mariana consistently reneges, eventually conceding that they cannot be together because "this is the way the world is and we cannot change it." Anne disagrees. Shot like most BBC productions in washed-out tones, Anne Lister is a rote costume drama, only with more lady-lovin'. While there are whispers of how Anne's community reacts to her choices - like referring to her as Gentleman Jack - the characters rarely appear to be part of the larger world. Lacking a strong historical context, the movie remains a run-of-the-mill story of unrequited love. -M.E. (RE, 7/11, 7pm)

Seeing Heaven

Through a cycle of porn, prostitution and hallucinated orgasms, erotic noir Seeing Heaven follows the encounters of beautiful, elite male hooker Paul whose mind-blowing sex is often too much for his clients. Paul's self-consumption and vanity prove detrimental to his quest to find his long-lost brother. Sex is the real key to his fulfillment and provides the answers to his questions. While it can all get pretty gratuitous at points (even for a story of a prostitute), the film's other central mystery is intriguing on its own. -Nyidera Edwards (RB, 7/16th, 7:30pm; RE, 7/18, 4:30pm)

Shut Up and Kiss Me

Crudely directed and amateurishly acted, the ultra-low-budget Shut Up and Kiss Me is, nevertheless, a rather charming romance about gay dating. Ben (writer Ronnie Kerr, drawing from experience) tries to overcome his commitment fears as he goes on a series of bad and/or dumb dates before connecting with Grey (Scott Gabelein). The picky Ben thinks he could be falling in love with Grey, who admits that he's not good with fidelity. Their romance addresses issues of monogamy and HIV, without sensation or too much stupidity. Shut Up and Kiss Me features a genial cast - several of whom are not afraid to get full-frontally nude - and some amusing support from Joey Russo and Kindall Kolins as Ben's straight friends. Although the film requires some benevolence from demanding viewers, it is quite watchable until the cop-out ending. -Gary M. Kramer (RE, 7/13, 9:30pm; RE, 7/18, 12:15pm)

Straight and Butch

The idea behind Butch Cordora's eyebrow-raising 2009 calendar is compelling: The former Philly talk-show host posed naked with a year's worth of straight men - also naked - in scenes ranging from goofy to NSFW, in an ostensible effort to push the societal-norm envelope and impose upon its audience a new, nontraditional kind of sexiness. Unfortunately, the film isn't as effective as its end product, and reveals holes that a 12-page picture book keeps nicely shrouded. As the frenetic, camera-loving Cordora drags us chronologically through the process of finding willing participants and sorting out logistics, questions arise: Why six different photographers? Why does he insist on "interviewing" his models before the shoots, making sure they're properly groomed? As Cordora's mission becomes less and less clear, we're left to wonder whether this is nothing more than a vanity project. Sometimes, less really is more. -Carolyn Huckabay (RB, 7/14, 7:30pm)

Strapped

Strapped may appear to be the zillionth film about a male prostitute (Ben Bonenfant) looking for money, if not love and the meaning of life. But don't be quick to dismiss this curiously affecting drama. Writer/director Joseph Graham sensitively presents issues of masculinity and gay sexuality. Sure, the expected stereotypes are all on display - from the man who lives in a fantasy world, to the tweakers, to the straight-but-bi-curious dude, the old lonely guy and the lost man who just wants to be loved. But Graham stages these consecutive encounters (they all take place in the same apartment building) as a series of compelling two-handers in which emotions are revealed more nakedly than bodies during discreetly filmed sex acts. Bonenfant oozes sex appeal and this stagy (but not in a bad way) film is a fine showcase for his talents. -GMK (RB, 7/17, 7:30pm; RE, 7/18, 9:15pm)

Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam

The U.S. Muslim punk scene was more or less willed into existence by author/scholar Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 novel The Taqwacores, which imagined a Buffalo Muslim punk house. Omar Majeed's documentary follows Knight and a handful of bands (including The Kominas, Vote Hezbollah and girl group Secret Trial Five, led by openly gay Sena Hussain) inspired by The Taqwacores' publication on a tour across America and later to Pakistan, but it feels a bit artificial. There's a hard-to-deny sense, as these bands play before small and sometimes hostile crowds (for instance, an open mic at the Islamic Society of North America convention), that Taqwacore is as much about bands in search of a scene as it is a scene in search of acceptance. -B.H. (RE, 7/14, 9:30pm)

Violet Tendencies

The best part of Casper Andreas' Violet Tendencies is the OMG, her! factor of figuring out that titular fag-hag Violet is Mindy Cohn, aka Natalie from The Facts of Life. But poor Violet isn't happy: She doesn't want a marriage proposal or white dress; the self-proclaimed fruit fly wants to get laid. Unfortunately, her stud-heavy lifestyle isn't helping (sweetheart, neither is telling your blind date that cheese will clog his anal cavity). A cameo by Village Voice columnist/man-about-town Michael Musto, and Kim Allen as Violet's bulimic supermodel-esque co-worker Salome elicit some laughs, but Violet's snuggle-bunny search, and its eventual culmination, are tied up just a little too neatly. Plus, where's Tootie? -M.E. (RE, 7/17, 9:30pm)

Wild About Harry

Set in 1973, Gwen Wynne's debut film deals with daughters' reaction to their father's semi-closeted homosexuality. After the death of their mother, the Goodhart family moves to Cape Cod, where pretty girl Madeline (Danielle Savre) and her quirky younger sis Daisy (Skye McCole Bartusiak) go through the fitting-in motions. They are invited by school friends to secretly visit the gay bacchanalia Atlantic House, where Madeline spies her father Harry (Tate Donovan, complete with 'burns and a Brit accent) getting cozy with his live-in "business partner" Mr. Gibbs (Rent's Adam Pascal). Hurt and confused, Madeline tries to hook pops up with any available divorcée (like Clueless' Stacey Dash and Mad About You's Anne Ramsey) willing to boozily throw themselves at Harry's unwilling feet. Wynne's film is uneven in tone, indecisive about whether it's a quirky comedy or a family's dramatic coming-of-age. -M.E. (RB, 7/12, 7:30pm; RB, 7/16, 5:15pm)

You Should Meet My Son!

Mae (JoAnne McGee) is a quintessential overbearing mother who just wants what's best for her son, Brian (Stewart Carrico). The tight close-ups and Mae's obnoxiously decorated abode only add to the insanity that evolves as she tries to play matchmaker. Brian brings his "roommate," Dennis (Brett Holland), to every family dinner, where new and hopeful bachelorettes are paraded around. But once Mae realizes and comes to terms with Brian's sexuality and his relationship with Dennis disintegrates, she wastes no time altering her target in the eternal search to set up her son. -J.Z. (RE; 7/15, 7:15 pm; RE, 7/16, 5pm)