The basic plot of this film, such as it is, involves two young men (high school students? college students? like most everything else, it is not made clear) who are in love; one of them is the son of a local preacher, who grows increasingly unhinged over the prospect of his son being gay. Meanwhile, there is a seemingly unrelated plot involving a cruise line putting together a gay-themed cruise on the Erie Canal.
This movie is a completely disjointed mess. It jumps from scene to scene with no rhyme or reason; characters aren't introduced so much as they just show up. One scene in the movie has two Asian break dancers auditioning for... something? And they are never seen again. Acting is local community theater quality, as you would expect. And the ending, without giving away plot details, seems like it was shot to be a promotion for the Upstate New York Tourism Board or something.
Dropped in the middle of the movie, causing it to grind to a screeching halt, is a ten minute "play" about Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi. This is cited as a high point of the movie by others, but it's incredibly portentous, overly long, and doesn't fit in with the rest of the story (as much as anything else fits in to the story at least).
Also, there are too many characters in the movie to keep track of, especially since so many of them are so one-dimensional and either disappear from the narrative after one or two scenes or completely change their one character trait. Robert Altman this ain't.
I'm giving this two stars because there is at least a decent acoustic cover of "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money towards the beginning. Otherwise, this is just a complete mess of a film and should not be watched without copious amounts of alcohol and snark.
