I just finished watching Queerstralia , which is a three-part documentary about the hidden history of LGBTQIA+ people in Australia. It’s hosted by a comedian named Zoe Coombs Marr. To be honest, I didn't know who she was before this, so it took me a little while to get used to her specific style of joking around. The show covers a huge amount of time, starting from when Australia was a prison colony for the British all the way to famous movies like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert . It looks at how being gay was treated as a crime, the stories of trans pioneers, and even "bushrangers" (outlaws) who dressed in clothes of the opposite sex. It also goes into the history of the Mardi Gras festival, drag culture, and how gay marriage finally became legal there. The host starts the show by jokingly saying, "I’m a comedian, I’m not qualified," which tells you right away it's not going to be a stiff or boring history lesson. Over three episodes that are an hour long...
Wyatt, recently broken up with his boyfriend and a financier from New York returns home to Colorado for the holidays in an effort to convince his mother, Deb to sell the family's ranch and the endearing Winter Wonderland attraction. He pretty much left it to his mom to run the place five years ago around the time his father passed away. Meanwhile, Deb has a new guy Heath working on the ranch helping her big time with trying to sustain the tradition. After initial anger, misjudging each other, Heath and Wyatt do fall for each other. But each of them is carrying their own baggage of their past, which is making it harder for both of them to give their 100% to each other. And the fact that Wyatt wants to sell the ranch while Heath wanting to save it any cost is not helping their cause. As you would expect, their romance blossoms, gets a to hurdle when Wyatt has to go back home. But a brilliant idea (was it really?) that Wyatt gets will finally save the ranch. And Maybe it will also make him stay longer in Colorado to work on his love and bring them both together.
Even though the film stays mostly a family affair, we do have the pleasure of seeing both Wyatt and Heath in their tightest of boxer underwear and appreciate their chiseled bodies and good looks. That aside, I did appreciate the fact that both men have some sort of back story of their troubled growing up teen years in a small rural town and that has shaped who they have become as men. Wyatt and Heath actually forge a real, believable connection by sharing their coming out stories—and then the movie tears them apart with a problem that is way more complex than the usual goofy mixups we get in these movies. I am not sure I liked Deb's performance though. Her expressions and reactions , according to me, were way off than whats happening on the screen. She seemed in excruciating physical pain all the time. The film is packed with scenes designed to make your heart melt, specially the homecoming dance date the two main characters go on. The location, the cinematography was very holiday like and makes you get in the mood.
Overall it is a nice gay love drama over the holiday period that unfolds in front of you on the screen. It is a pleasant and heartwarming movie, where the leads manage to sustain the audience's attention for its entire duration. (7/10)
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