This screwball comedy from 1969 has a pretty wild premise: two guys try to fake being gay just to dodge the military draft. If you watched this today, it would probably come across as super offensive, and I honestly have no clue how people felt about it back when it first hit theaters. My guess is it probably wasn't a huge hit. The humor is really broad and kind of goofy, with a lot of obvious puns that actually reminded me of those cheesy sitcoms from the 80s and 90s. It makes me wonder if this movie actually inspired some of those later shows. The story follows two best friends, Danny and Elliot, who are desperate to get out of the draft. They decide the best way out is to pretend they're in a relationship, but the Army doesn't just take their word for it and puts them under surveillance. Even though they’re both young and have girlfriends, they’re forced to move into an apartment building full of gay residents to keep up the act. It’s a total mess because they’re trying ...
This indie flick is basically the story of a gay teenage romance that’s found and then lost, all wrapped up in a Halloween party setting. Honestly, that’s the best way to put it. It’s got a super thin plot—maybe just a one-liner about a guy trying to find some closure—so it feels way more like a character study than an actual, full-blown love story.
The movie jumps back and forth between these really intimate flashbacks and the present day, where a lot of scheming is going on. It follows the relationship of Anatole, who’s semi-closeted, and Liam, who’s a total bleeding heart. They’ve been broken up for a bit, but Liam is still hurting like it just happened yesterday. He’s dead set on getting a second chance, so he sneaks into this exclusive Halloween party because he knows for a fact Anatole is going to be there. Once he’s inside, this girl catches him and threatens to blow his cover unless he agrees to babysit her creepy little "ghostly" brother while she runs off to hook up with her boyfriend. Liam is stuck and has no choice but to go along with it. As all the typical Halloween party craziness happens around them, we get flashes of the last eight months of their relationship. Every time we see Liam try to get close or get physical, Anatole just retreats into a shell. Eventually, the two of them track each other down and have a real talk. Liam understands why Anatole acts the way he does, and for his final words, he just tells him he hopes Anatole finds the courage to love someone one day because he has so much to give. There’s another flashback that actually explains why Anatole has these mental scars when it comes to being physical with people. While all this is going down, Liam and the kid he’s watching over end up becoming mentors for one another, helping each other grow through their own personal journeys.
To be honest, the first half of the movie is kind of a snooze fest. You’re just looking around the room at different characters and their perspectives, and it doesn't do much. But during that time, the bond Liam forms with the ghost kid is actually what kept me interested. The flashback scenes of the relationship don't really give us a ton of info, other than the fact that they met on a bus, Anatole is somewhat in the closet and scared of physical intimacy, and they eventually decided to just call it quits. There’s a really big moment near the end involving a keyhole tattoo that stands out as one of those defining images—it’s a powerful statement on consent and child abuse. The movie basically argues both for and against the pain of young heartbreak. The actors do a fine job with what they have, but the movie just doesn't quite grab you and hold your attention. It probably would’ve made a really strong short film, but as it stands, it’s just an average movie.
It's a small-scale character study that handles some heavy themes like consent and trauma, but the slow pace keeps it from being truly engaging. It feels like a great short film idea that got stretched a little too thin. (4.5/10)
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