People You May Know

It reminded me of Madonna's classic, "Sobrou Pra Você", with due proportions, of course, because here the humor and drama fell far short, but we delighted in a light, unpretentious and militant film, beautiful and pleasant ... Charismatic characters, script simple, yet functional and attractive ...

'People You May Know' (PYMK) was too long, not particularly well written, the characters sketchy and far fetched scenarios abound. It centers around a group of LaLa Land denizens, some with questionable morals and ethics. Joe, one of the main characters and gay, is 'heterosexualized' one evening, sleeping with the wife of one of his best friends, the result of excessive alcohol on both sides. Their lives are forever changed as a result, for the better and for the worse in terms of her marriage. Joe is lonely and single and trolls the internet while looking for inspiration to write the great novel. He discovers he's being catfished online by an imposter who he had fallen in love with before finding out the truth. A far fetched meeting with the real person who's being impersonated occurs at a local bar one evening.

This entire catfishing experience becomes the inspiration he needs to tell his internet story. His writer's block is finally lifted. One of the other characters falls in love for the first time, then receives a job promotion forcing him to relocate. This regrettably derails his relationship, sadly. All I'll say is another far fetched situation happens here at the end.

The writing could have been tighter, the film shorter, and the acting and directing improved. But in the end, PYMK is well intentioned and even somewhat entertaining at times.

From other reviews online, I'd gotten the impression that this might not be just another stale gay dramedy full of stale gay dramedy clichés... but five minutes in, one lead coyly asks the other, "When's the last time you got laid? 'cause you're really tense right now!" I hit eject, put the DVD back in its case, and tossed it in the box with tired old gay movies from the horrible old days when that's all we had.

With people like Alan Brown, Mark Thiedeman and Joseph Graham making intelligent, NON-clichéd gay movies -- about and for adults, not bitchy, mentally challenged, self-obsessed, cocaine-snorting, thirtysomething (or older) adolescents -- there's no excuse to keep recycling the same old garbage. Besides, one minute earlier the same character had said, "... or something equally as stupid." The writer gets old clichés just right, but writing plain English correctly evidently is beyond him. I almost ejected it then, but when the "got laid" line came fast on its heels, and in the same smug, whiny voice, it sealed this movie's fate for me.

Well written, realistic view of the modern gay male experience, featuring the almost always present hetero-female friends. Some "straight" men do not want to understand or take responsibility for the actions, and that is perfectly normal, too. The actors excel in their roles and the film moves along at a good pace. Kudos for a very well made movie.

It has the virtue to be one of films delighting a part of public for honest perspective about life, dilemmas, relations, loneliness, frustrations, all so familiar in near reality daily life. You recognize situations and crisis and gestures . And this can be a good thing about film.

It is easy to recognize a good fist of cliches . Or not very happy about no revelations, courageous solutions or real provocative options. So, easy to define it as boring.

But it is only a film about friendship . No ambitions of brave demonstrations, often bitter taste of not far by you situations, warm and , yes, a film in which older teens are just present.

Maybe not exactly a slice of lif but a faithful reflection of it.