Things Like This

Look, I like a gay rom-com featuring a plus-size guy in the lead as much as anyone, but why, oh, why does that character have to be so annoying?

What's even more annoying than the character is the fact that the guy who plays him also wrote and directed the movie. I guess if you're gonna write a movie to star yourself, it might as well be a fantasy in which you land the hot guy no matter how much of a loser you are.

Writer-director-actor Max Talisman plays Zach, who after being dumped by one hottie, immediately meets-cute with another (well as cute as ordering and downing a drink you know you can't pay for can be) - coincidentally also named Zach (Joey Pollari) - and, despite many complications, ends landing him after serenading him at his sister's high school prom.

Don't ask.

While the script has a few nice moments, and some veteran actors have a few nice moments, too (Eric Roberts, Barbara Barrie), it's tough to get past the protagonist being a wastrel/jerk.

It's not that wastrels don't deserve to find love (I still hope to some day), it's just that I don't need to sit in a theater and watch it.

Neither do you.

Max Talisman playing Zack Anthony the struggling writer is all this is wrong about this movie. The Feel of the movie is well crafted for a small romantic comedy, Zack Mandel played by Joey Pollari really carries the movie all by himself. And the other roles in the movie are generally decent acting too. Joey pollari in his character feels like he is genuine, the emotional, frustrated, sad, and the way he carries himself in the movie feels like the right cast, he feels real. As opposed to Max Talisman who lacks to provide any kind of genuine emotion. Let me say right away that it's not because he is overweight, he just has no charisma, the way he delivers his lines are not believable, he kinda feels like a stand up comedian trying to hit his line one after another (which are not funny or genuine). There's absolutely NO CHEMISTRY between him and Joey Pollari which in the movie Joey is charismatic and his lines feels like he is living in this movie for real. This was bad casting, it sure would have been easy to find any other actor to play Zack Anthony. Whenever Max Talisman tries to act and be emotional it just all feels flat. It's a one sided well acted character by Joey Pollari, but I'm having a difficult time to get through the movie because of the hollowness of Max Talisman's Actiing. Such a shame with a different actor where Joey could have chemistry with the character of Zack Anthony, this could have been a really sweet rom-com. I gave it 2 stars for Joey's well acting and good story line. But the Director should have seen the problem with Max Talisman not belonging into this movie and have a recast for the character of Zack Anthony.

There's a rule in screenwriting that if you're going to have a character who's a bit extra/annoying/difficult, they need to do something unquestionably good early into the script, like saving a cat. That never happens for either of the two romantic leads. One is annoying, the other is slightly less annoying... and while I want more plus-size representation in queer cinema, certainly we can do better than this. Apart from making each other laugh, I never understood why either of them found the other attractive. I only realized that one of the actors who plays the romantic lead also wrote and starred in it when we got to the end. So... was this supposed to be some sort of fantasy about getting the hottie? But the thing is, the supposed "hottie" wasn't that attractive because he's such a jerk to the people around him. We can do better than this...

Such a good opportunity missed. This could have been great, but it felt unbelievable and contrived. I did wonder if it was written by someone with autism because it doesn't really seem aware of any social cues about how life works.

This isn't believable in the slightest. Bit of a fantasy world of some gay teen, with no grounding in reality. Oh look, a sexy man going through some stuff, being vulnerable, falling for someone not conventionally attractive. Always with the tormented gay character. Come on, we really can do better these days. This isn't the 90s any more where we just lap up any old tosh because of 'representation'. Needs a better script, more believable characters and a stronger base. How did this film even get made?

Gay romantic comedies are a relatively new movie genre, and they're still finding their footing, with some doing the job better than others. On balance, they're steadily improving for the most part, but some offerings still need work. Such is the case with the debut feature from actor-writer-director Max Talisman, a film that definitely has aspects in its favor but others that could use some tweaking. In a nutshell, this romantic comedy tells the story of two men named Zack, one lovelorn (Talisman) and the other trapped in an unsatisfying relationship (Joey Pollari), who meet and fall for one another. However, their romance follows a well-worn, underwhelming, occasionally sappy romcom narrative formula that's anything but original (regardless of the sexual orientation of the romantic leads involved). What's more, the plotline is peppered with more than a few stereotypical characters and scenarios, elements that, frankly, feel a little stale and somewhat lazily constructed. On top of this, the performances of many of the cast members (especially among the supporting players) come across as too animated or too forced to be taken seriously, both in their over-the-top, almost cartoonish portrayals and in the sometimes-exaggerated dialogue they're asked to deliver. At the same time, though, the film also incorporates a plethora of hilarious, highly original, truly inspired one-liners that conjure up colorful images leaving viewers wondering, "How did they ever come up with that idea!" And, despite the screenplay's all-too-frequent reliance on the aforementioned stereotypes, the picture includes many imaginative and genuinely funny gay-themed moments that pop up seemingly out of nowhere, evoking big laughs at times when least expected. It's also heartening to see a gay release that makes use of "real" characters in its story (i.e., a plus-sized male protagonist (Talisman) who becomes involved in an entirely believable relationship with an average Joe (Pollari) and does so without going out of its way to draw attention to the fact that it features an atypical couple for a gay film, one that doesn't default to employing buffed gym bunnies in the lead roles). So where does this mixed bag of attributes leave audiences? For my money, I felt like I was watching a filmed version of the first draft of a movie, one that definitely had potential but that needed refinement in its writing, acting, character development and overall story arc. However, as with releases in any new cinematic genre that's still coming into its own, there are going to be bumps along the road, and "Things Like This" is no exception. The same can be said for the work of a first-time filmmaker who's still in search of finding his directorial legs. On both counts, though, there's certainly promise to be had here, even if there's still ample room for improvement to get things to where they ought to be.