Is It Just Me?

Some 5 minutes in the movie, our main lead, Nicholas, went to order a coffee, being treated extremely rudely by the coffee-bar boy, just because he is - at least the movie wanted us to believe - ugly enough to have a complicated coffee order. And instead of showing a spine, he acted as it was a completely normal thing. He also has a bi*chy straight girl-friend and annoying flatmate.

I disliked literally all of the characters of the movie in the first half - including beautiful but pale Xander (the second lead), for smiling like an idiot all the time, his old flatmate for being too curious about his life, Nicholas' boss and his secretary, basically, all characters that had any screen time.

However, somehow the movie turned out to be watchable, even enjoyable and cute. It's not, by any means, a great movie, but it's good enough to give you some emotions and stay entertained. The plot, despite being a bit stupid and easily solvable, still made some sense. And it shows the search for true love from the perspective of a guy most of us tend to believe we are - average, cute, romantic one. 5.5/10

This movie is definitely one of the best LGBT films that I've seen, and I hope the IMDb score will start reflecting that as more and more people will come to know it. While it's a simple and clichéd romantic story, most of those that currently exist in the LGBT film genre are quite poor, so for me this comes as a welcome addition.

Most of the characters in the movie are stereotypical, but not in a bothersome way. You have the self-deprecating nerd (Blaine), the perfect dream guy (Xander), the jock who's more focused on sex (Cameron), the older eccentric guy who's lived his life alone, the understanding female friend. I have to give a lot of credit to the actors and the script for not making these characters devolve into annoying rehashes of what we've already seen dozens of time. All of the characters are likable and relatable in some way. The movie does not judge any of them, and there's no bad guy.

The main actors are all excellent. Nicholas Downs as Blaine is very convincing as a hopelessly romantic but self-deprecating and lonely gay guy. While most of such characters typically become annoying and exhausting to watch, I really ended up rooting for him as the film went on. Same goes for Adam Huss as Cameron. This is the type of sex crazed guy that I usually dislike, but Adam never lays it on too thick. And he is definitely studly enough to make his job as a go-go dancer believable. Bruce Gray as Ernie provides most of the humor in the film. I still remember him as George in the American version of Queer As Folk, and he is as great here as he was there. Humorously eccentric, but not so over-the-top as to defy the borders of reality.

Even surrounded by these great actors, it's David Loren as Xander who commands your attention in each scene he's in. Of all the dreamy guys that have been cast in LGBT films over the years, he is probably the most dreamy. Extremely attractive, sweet, adorable, you name it, he is it. What makes his performance so admirable is that even with these qualities, he never seems to be out of Blaine's league. His subtle looks, expressions and actions are all spot on and make all of the chemistry he has with the other characters completely real. I was very impressed and hope to see him move on to bigger roles after this.

Of course, no movie is perfect. There were a few minor annoyances, like Blaine speaking out loud the words he was typing, and his job situation at "USA TOGAY" was a bit bizarre, to say the least. The focus is a bit too much on the romantic drama, where some more time could be spent fleshing the characters out, especially Xander. We don't learn all that much about him other than that he's from Texas and just moved to LA. I also thought it was strange that Xander, after talking to Blaine on the phone for hours and hours, could not tell the voices of Blaine and Cameron apart when he met them in real life.

One last issue I had was that the movie was a bit too homo-normative; the four main characters are all gay guys, and most of the scenes are either in their respective homes or in a completely gay establishment (like a coffeehouse or a gay bar). There was hardly anyone of a different sexuality (or even a different race). In that sense it was like a traditional heterosexual romantic comedy, just with almost all characters rewritten as gay. You could say it's refreshing that the focus was not at all on a specific gay issue but more on a universal issue, but I think the movie could've done a bit more to set itself apart from non-LGBT films, and really address some of the issues that make LGBT such a promising area of film making. Giving Xander more of a background and helping us understand why he is the way he is could've done that. Now he is just a perfect guy and that's it.

Aside from that, the movie is really enjoyable and heartwarming and I highly recommend it.

I liked the concept for this movie and the poster makes it look like a fun romantic comedy with-a-big-load-of-misunderstandings, which caused me to have big hopes it would live up to that.

Unfortunately everything from the main characters performance to the (honestly awful) dialogue to cutting and editing reminded me of the amateur movies of the sort you'd see high schoolers upload to youtube. They are fine and fun in their own medium, seen for what they are, but it did not do well as a full length film pretending to be professional. Unfortunate, because had the same movie been made with a better writer I think it would be a lot better.

Also, worth to notice: there are exactly three women in this entire movie. I don't mean characters, I'm talking out of everyone, background characters and all. That is honestly a little bit hilarious. Where does these people live?

Yes 'is it just me' is a well intentioned little film. But when did watching a gay movie become like watching a Christian film, or even worse a Tyler Perry movie! So many gay films of the last 10+ years have been so limp and predictable and this one is no exception. You know exactly what is going to happen and it features the usual gallery of gay indie clichés, the fag-hag, the slutty friend and the dryly funny/ miserable old queen. Thankfully the performances are good and characters likable. Believe me I get it, there's little money in gay cinema and we need our rom-coms too but we need more genre benders like Hellbent and Another Gay Movie, I can't keep watching the same story just to support gay indie films. Shelter did it best, that felt like a 90s movie, the glory days of gay cinema. Is it just me? I don't think so.

Young Nicholas Downs is an early 30 something gay man who is a successful on line columnist who can't get himself a date. The anonymity of the internet works well for him because he lacks a lot of personal self confidence. His roommate Adams Huss makes up for more than enough. He's a part time actor between gigs and earning nice money as a go go boy in gay bar where nightly his cowboy boots are stuffed with folding money.

One day his blog is answered by David Loren a really nice and charming Texas kid with the accent to match. Only he thinks he's answered the roommate's ad.

Cutting to the chase this is a 21st century version of the John Alden/Priscilla Mullins romance with a bit of Cyrano de Bergerac thrown in. It's nicely packaged in every sense of the phrase and the players are charming. There's a nice performance by Bruce Gray as the older gay roommate of Loren. We should all have a wise man like him in our gay lives.

And who could not fall in love with Loren's Texas drawl.