Long-Term Relationship

This is a traditional romantic comedy--love at first sight, complications, reconciliations, and lots of laughs. It centers around Glenn, a wiry, handsome, intense, Richard Gere type, who gets lots of one-night stands. His best friend/roommate is looking through the personals for an "LTR". He reads one that catches Glenn's interest, and Glenn winds up meeting Adam, a Brendan Fraser type. If you've ever wanted to see Richard Gere make love to Brendan Fraser, now's the chance. The contrast between the two types makes the physical contact especially hot.

The description of the movie in the program for New York's LGBT Film Festival gave away one of the best punchlines, which I will not do here. There are major differences, however, between Adam and Glenn, but they have such a strong love for each other that they stick together. Until . . .

This was a really enjoyable film, with hot actors, snappy dialog, and a decent plot. It's very easy to relate to the situations. Maybe a bit too much emphasis on the campy gay friends, and the best female friend role has been done to death already (I guess you need the fag hag to attract the female demographic). But the film is fun all the way. And, have I mentioned, hot?

An assault and insult to gay men everywhere; apparently of whom the majority are vapid yet stern democrat sexoholic clichés who make poor attempts at wit and humor. This film tries so hard to be relevant and funny, but is a LONG tedious road-trip away from both. None of the jokes were remotely funny (and here's a hint: don't edit in long pauses after each joke for emphasis as if you're at a dinner-party...PICK UP THE PACE and maybe we won't NOTICE how bad the joke was!). The premise that any gay man who doesn't work for "ACT OUT" remotely cares about the political leanings of his sex-partner is beyond laughable. The only theme that COULD have been interesting was how two men overcome "bad sex". THIS was what I personally wanted to see resolved...and it never was! Were they just satisfied to a semi-platonic relationship? Did they find the magic formula (i.e. "being old-fashioned"?) or were they destined to continue trying? This was just a really bad exercise in campy comebacks...the type one would expect from shallow friends-of-friends at a drunken cocktail where you tell everyone you'll keep in touch but give fake numbers to.

Not so bad, but that's about all that can be said for it.

There are some genuinely amusing moments in the movie, mostly supplied by the supporting cast, but at times both the comedy and the drama really stretch credulity and fall flat.

When Glenn asks Mary Margaret why she's drinking herbal tea instead of coffee, she smiles coyly and says she's in her first trimester. His reaction: "oh are you going back to school." Ha. Ha.

When Adam's parents come for a visit, Glenn is hesitant and nervous about spending the night with Adam while his parents are in the house, but then later in the night he comes out of the bedroom stark naked, walks past the bathroom and stands at the kitchen sink for a drink of water with Adam's father sitting a few feet away. Surprise. Then, when the father invites him to sit and talk, he stays naked sitting at the dining room table rather than quickly grabbing a pair of shorts or a bathrobe or even a tea towel, but we're supposed to be amused by him feeling awkward and uncomfortable because he's naked with his boyfriend's father.

These contrived, desperate attempts at humor along with some really lame miscommunications situations that lead to some thin but over-acted drama, unfortunately reduce what could have been a reasonably decent movie down to soap opera or second-rate sitcom level.

The supposed intensity of love between the two lead characters never really comes across so that their communications mix-ups and fumbling attempts at sex don't really raise much tension on the part of viewers for fear that their romance might flounder. Actually I was hoping Glenn would forget about Adam and realize that his friend & roommate Vincent, who had a long-standing crush on Glenn, was a far better, more attractive and lively catch.

The "happily ever after" wrap-up that encompassed most of the characters felt like it was tacked on at the end simply because the movie had gone on long enough and a resolution, no matter how fairytale-ish, was needed before the curtain came down on it all.

I sat through most of it, although towards the end I started jabbing at the fast-forward button. A different actor playing Adam might have made a big difference.

A truly frightening film. Feels as if it were made in the early '90s by a straight person who wanted to show that gays are good, normal, mainstream-aspiring people. Retrograde to the point of being offensive, LTR suggests that monogamy and marriage are the preferred path to salvation for sad, lonely, sex-crazed gays. Wow! Who knew? The supporting characters are caricatures of gay stereotypes (the effeminate buffoon, the bitter, lonely queen, the fag hag, etc.) and the main characters are milquetoast, middle-class, middlebrow clones, of little interest.

As far as the romantic & ideological struggles of the main couple are concerned, there's not much to say: we've seen it all before, and done much better.

Movie had some good acting and good moments (though obviously pretty low budget), but bad rating due to basic premise being badly developed. The main point of conflict between the two leads doesn't play out in a realistic manner at all. There are a few scenes where they disagree because of it, but no discussions of any great depth that would explain how they can be together while seeing the world so differently, especially since the employment of Glenn is so wound up in this part of his life (and Adam is active enough with his that he supports it with time and money.) Also, several times Glenn is portrayed negatively for being the way he is (apologizing to Adam for his past) while Adam is shown to be upstanding and "traditional," which the film proclaims to be the "good" way in the end. I don't like being preached to like that. I attended a discussion session with the director after viewing LTR, and he said that he presented this conflict between them because, if he was in Glenn's shoes (and he said he does in real life relate to Glenn's view) that he could never date someone with Adam's views. Well, then, I think he should have done a much better job explaining how Glenn could do it in the film. Also, director said he directed this, his first movie, only after reading (Directing For Dummies.) Directing was not that bad, but far from a top notch effort. I've seen worse, but I rarely leave films feeling this frustrated.