WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Directed by Rose Troche and written by Robert Farrar, Bedrooms and Hallways is a contemporary romantic comedy which unravels the complexity of sexual identity with humour, originality and a mischievous sense of provocation.
For self-possessed, thirtysomething singleton Leo (Kevin McKidd), life has its ups and downs. He may be fulfilled professionally, but on the personal level, he's pining for a new relationship. His free-spirited flatmate Darren (Tom Hollander), who's having a torid affair with estate agent Jeremy (Hugo Weaving), nags him to get out there and enjoy himself. His sassy neighbour Angie (Julie Graham) agrees.
When his friend and boss Adam (Christopher Fulford) invites Leo to join his men's support group, Leo surprises everyone, including himself, when he confesses that he fancies one of the group members, Brendan (James Purefoy). After a weekend in the woods, where the men search for their inner wild men, Leo embarks on a passionate affair with Brendan, who is in the middle of a break-up with his long term girlfriend Sally (Jennifer Ehle). Leo discovers that Sally is in fact his own ex-teenage-girlfriend from years before. Never simple and never dull, life for Leo and his friends takes a chaotic turn, with hilarious results.
Novelist and screenwriter Robert Farrar was inspired to write Bedrooms and Hallways in 1993. "The idea with Bedrooms and Hallways was to create a comedy in which the temperature went up and the lid was blown off the gender preconceptions. I wanted to forget all the divisive issues, because that's not what being human is about. There is a whole constituency of gay men who are invisible: those who want their own masculinity, who accept their gay identity and don't want to be ghettoised."
It was this sentiment that struck a chord with American director Rose Troche, whose debut feature Go Fish had become an international art-house hit in 1994, when she was sent the script by London-based producers Dorothy Berwin and Ceci Dempsey, who had just set up Berwin & Dempsey Productions.
"The script was a real page-turner," sayd the award-winning director. "And very funny. It was also very contemporary in its attitude towards individualism. It didn't put people into categories. It was about being looser with conventional parameters."
"Neither Dorothy nor I are particularly interested in making gritty, heightened realism-type films," concludes producer Ceci Dempsey. "Bedrooms and Hallways is none of that: it's modern, stylish, warm, and witty and it says something important about how we live our lives and the choices we make in an intelligent and challenging way."
"Robert's screenplay was very provocative, very edgy but also terribly funny," says American-born Dempsey. "It made me laugh out loud and that's the litmus test...It was written in quite an un-English way, it's very cinematic and it took a lot of chances."
"It's a very contemporary story," concurs Berwin, "but that doesn't mean it's fleeting. I responded to its freshness: its attitude to gay individualism, that it didn't put people into categories, that it avoided caricature, that it presented its characters as the norm and wasn't hung up on hectoring or being angry. And it did all that in a warm and witty way."
It was Berwin who suggested Rose Troche when it came to decided on a director. The award-winning Chicagoan, whose debut Go Fish had won plaudits around the world, had met Berwin when she was at Zenith (a British production outlet) and they had discussed the possibility of teaming up for a project Troche had in development.
"I knew Rose was keen to do something more commercial than Go Fish," says Berwin. "Bedrooms and Hallways had all the qualities of Go Fish - the warmth, stylishness, humour, humanity - and we felt that having a director who was removed from the English reserve would be useful for the project."
For Troche, it was an opportunity she was unable to pass up. "I loved the humour and the energy of Robert's screenplay," she says. "I'm only interested in making movies that are socially relevant. I responded to the politics of the screenplay, the fact that it was about being looser with boundaries and sexual identity, about breaking out of gender categories, about making choices that feel right and that aren't predicated on preconceptions about gender or sexual orientation. I was also quite attracted by making my second film out of America. That diluated a lot of the pressure of expectation after the success of Go Fish.
When it came to casting the film, Troche and her producers saw an opportunity to combine the experienced with the up-and coming.
Hugo Weaving had committed early on to the role of the flamboyant, sex-obsessed estate agent Jeremy. Of his character he says, "Although he's an estate agent by profession, Jeremy's main vocation is having sex."
Simon Callow and Harriet Walter brought their considerable acting experience to the parts of Keith and Sybil, the king and queen of New Age wisdom. Simon Callow was attracted to the film's exploration of sexual stereotypes. "Keith is a man who has become intimidated by the feminist movement and has set up the Men's Group as an excuse to rediscover his masculinity. This film explores the sexual limitations we impose upon ourselves. It's an entirely unmoralistic film." Harriet Walter believes that Keith's wife, Sybil, is "a sophisticated intellectual feminist who has probably done the university lecture circuit in her time but is now a more streamlined person."
Jennifer Ehle's subtle talent and luminous beauty fleshed out the character of Sally. "She's a woman facing one of life's crossroads. She's on the brink of finishing a long relationship and wants to get in touch with the person she left behind when she was 16 years old."
Tom Hollander unleashed his comic timing as the mischievous Darren. "Wheras most films tend to simplify the way the world works, this film makes the point that the sexual identity is a huge and confusing issue."
James Purefoy added a laid-back charisma to the role of Brendan and admits that the appeal fo this film is "that it isn't a minority film. It's a date movie for everyone."
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