Almost Normal

I did like this movie. It had the benefit of never having been done before or since for that matter.

In the primary story, a college professor, reaches his 40th birthday and is an unhappy single gay man. He goes home to help his family celebrate his parent's 45th wedding anniversary. During his visit he runs into old friends and old "not so" friends. Further reminded of his lonely life during this family gathering he gets into an accident and is somehow catapulted back into his teenage years.

However all is not as it was. Now he is a world where men like men and girls like girls. His father is married to his otherworld neighbor husband and his mother is married to the otherworld wife. The star of the basketball team a guy he has always had a crush on meets and falls for him while his best friend, a girl shows up. For a brief shining moment he is "normal." However all things are not equal. In this world he discovers that he is not gay. He falls for his friend and they enter a tentative relationship that jeopardizes the love he had developed with his teen heartthrob.

The movie was good but not as good as it could have been. From the technical side the movie's editing was not as good as it could have been and some of the actors had a habit of overplaying their roles. Still for what it was and is this movie is a ground breaker. It was a major shocker for me a gay man to see a high-school full of boys kissing each other and girls doing the same with their girl friends. For a moment I saw a world where I would have been "Almost Normal."

Right! I felt a bit angry half way through the movie. I admitted I forwarded and rewind a few scenes I thought there were funny. But the idea of a gay person going to a future where you can be gay and it is acceptable as "normal" and the same character decided that he is "straight" did not make any sense to me. However I think this movie is about being an "Outsider" rather than an "Insider" (as the main character says at the end "sometimes what I want it is not what I need"). I agreed with previous comments, you don't really know what audience this movie target, but I have to say it is an interesting concept the director brings to the screen, isn't perfect but a good effort.

This is obviously a film that comes from the heart. If only it had embraced its sincere dramatic elements more fully, it might have been a worthwhile outing. It does indeed suffer from many of the usual ailments associated with ultra-low-budget films (e.g. inexperienced actors, flimsy production design, gaping plot-holes, etc.) but the biggest problem by far is its insistence on assaulting the audience with copious amounts of tone deaf "wacky comedy". Just about every time the plot builds to a moment of poignancy, the script turns around and kicks itself in the balls with an ill-timed, unfunny joke. This, combined with the bargain basement production values, makes for a grating, nearly unbearable experience.

A gay, frustrated with being gay, travels to the past after a car accident. He is magically transported back to his high school days, where everyone is gay, and being straight is not accepted. So far, so good. Interesting idea. I thought it could prove to be interesting. But then the gay guy turns straight. He then makes a stand and fights for straight rights. It lost me there. Everyone then starts admitting they have straight feelings, a begin becoming straight. I suppose somewhere in there is a moral. I was too appalled to bother searching for it. Another promising idea wasted. I suppose the chances of a well acted gay movie, that is professionally done is about as likely as the Cubs winning the pennant.

The concept is potentially interesting. It is openly attempting to use the Back to the Future idea to take a gay college professor back to his high school days in a world where what's considered "normal" and "abnormal" is reversed. Unfortunately the potential is never realized.

The actor playing the central character, Brad, is likable enough. He and the actors who play students do turn in reasonably good performances given the rather lame situations and dialogue they are forced to cope with. Conversely most of the actors playing adult characters seem to suffer from major aren't-we-being-too-silly over-acting syndrome and often sound like they're reading their lines from a teleprompter that isn't keeping up.

The story blurb states that Brad "is tired of being different because he is gay" and that when he is transported back in time he becomes "almost normal." Obviously that's not what happens at all. Taking that view would seem to imply that being straight will forever be the preferred norm in any context.

In the present day he, and many others, consider him to be different because he is gay. When he goes back to his high school days he becomes straight in a fantasy world where gay is normal. Once again he's different and regarded as "disgusting" & perverted and is the object of the same sort of bullying from his peers and negative reactions from adults that he experienced in the real world.

It might have been a more interesting premise if he had retained his sexual orientation and found himself in a world where he was a normal gay kid and the victimized minority in his school were the heterosexuals. Finding himself in the majority and not having to deal with all the guilt and grief dumped on him could have been a genuine role-reversal with real implications as he decided whether the fantasy experience or his real life was preferable.

In the end it's still mainly a mediocre high school coming-of-age drama. It's still the same normal kids and the same prejudiced community standards making life miserable for the minority, even if what defines normal and abnormal has changed.