Pit Stop

Pit Stop is a wonderful new film from director Yen Tan. It is the story of two mid-thirtyish gay men, Gabe and Ernesto, living separate but not totally dissimilar low key working class lives in the same Texan small town. Separately each man is yearning for love and emotional fulfillment while respectively struggling with his daily life and relationships. The focus is on Gabe and Ernesto but everyone in the film is a real person with a story to tell. All are portrayed in a thoughtful and empathetic way with no one casually discarded for the sake of storytelling expediency. This is a true character study of people finding their way in life and love and one cares about what will happen to them.

Gabe is divorced but trying to sustain his family for the sake of his young daughter. He has recently been rejected by a male lover who is married and now moved away. Ernesto is trying to end a two year relationship that has fallen apart and has no future. At the same time he is dutifully visiting a previous lover who lies comatose in a convalescent home following a car accident. Both men want more but their personal situations and the small town environment constrain them from being who they are and achieving the love and intimacy they long for and deserve. Both men still want to be wanted.

The film is beautifully made and the ensemble cast, led by Bill Heck as Gabe and Marcus DeAnda as Ernesto, is top notch. Pit Stop is a moving film that deserves a wide audience. Fans of Tan's earlier film, Ciao, will particularly like Pit Stop.

Am 56 and was searching for gay themed movies on Youtube when I came across this move. I have long dreamed of the type of gay movie I would like to see made..and this fit the bill in every way. You have two brilliant actors playing masculine gay men in small town America. You see an expertly crafted display of a universal theme - the need to be loved and with the one you love. The movie was low budget, but the script and performances were real and made up for any "cheapness" in the look of the movie. Although I didn't need to see the intense sex scene near the end, it was well made, convincing and served a purpose - to show how the sex between these men was more than just raw sex and a one night stand. I, too, was left wanting to see more of the budding relationship form between these two gay men...but was satisfied that the ending implied there were better times to come for these two men.

Pit Stop is a gay love story situated in a little town in the state of Texas, USA. Yes, also in little places gay people do live. Not everybody moves to the Big Apple after their coming out. Some like the quietness of small town life or stay there for other reasons. I know many gays fear the loneliness of the countryside, but actually, destiny decides if you find love, no matter where you are. I liked this 'little' independent movie a lot. The men are beautiful and sensitive and they make sense. It's a dramatic movie, but not too. These men have pets, like a cat or dog, it all looked very real and sincere. Even the cat was so relaxed, like it actually lived there. I think this is a very adequate portrait of gay countrymen.

I suppose, the perspective about homosexual relations represents the main virtue of this real interesting film. It is not a demonstration, a manifesto, a melodrama or the heartbreaking self definition of gay life in terrible society.

It is easy to see it as a gallery of portraits of ordinary people and their lives, options, relations. It is a film about romance and family and dilemmas. But its good point is the honesty of vision of every day realities .

Maybe not impressive, obvious not memorable. But in its way, courageous. In short, in Texas, few men and their lives , stories and their romances . And , sure, their answers to life .

This film throws traditional screenplay structure out the window which at first makes one wait for major plot developments, but in the process it draws you into the lives of many different characters who are just trying to get by in their unsatisfying small town lives.

That in itself becomes compelling in its own compassionate, poetic way. The performances are all outstanding and one really feels for each of the leading and supporting characters as their stories unfold.

There's a sad kindness in the way the stories unfold, and the film becomes a broad portrait of gay life in small town Texas. If you take the film on its own terms, it blossoms in a way that you seldom see in most movies, gay or otherwise.