by Kirk Honeycutt
Caught somewhere between sex farce and romantic comedy, Rose Troche's Bedrooms & Hallways slyly peeks in both places to explore the modern male psyche. Although this British film's outlook is predominantly gay, it has a sure instinct for human foibles no matter what one's sexual identity is.
A lighthearted entry in this year's Outfest in Los Angeles, the film will be released by First Run Features in the United States, where its themes will undoubtedly limit its playability to gay audiences.
In her second film, Troche, the director of the 1994 lesbian romantic comedy Go Fish, takes satiric digs at what it means to be male in the final days of the 20th century. Her targets include bonding rituals, group therapy, sexual-identity confusion and the insatiable need to commingle risk with romance.
Not that women don't figure prominently in Troche's story. But the females mostly stand aside in bemused wonder, alternately appalled and amazed at the muddle these men manage to get into as they struggle to make sense of their lives.
The film focuses on three flatmates -- two gay men and one straight woman. Darren (Tom Hollander) has taken up with a real estate agent, whose biggest attraction is a set of keys to other people's houses where they carry on high-risk liaisons when no one (they hope) is at home.
Leo (Kevin McKidd), however, is in enough of a mess that a straight co-worker suggests he join a "New Man" therapy group. This group, led by New Age guru Keith (the irrepressible Simon Callow), goes in for such rituals as passing the "honesty stone" and sitting in ersatz Eskimo igloos where everyone gets in touch with his inner self by grasping a harpoon.
It is while the honesty stone gets passed that Darren admits he is attracted to another group member, Brendan (James Purefoy). Startled but flattered, Brendan is in the process of extricating himself from a long-term relationship with his girlfriend and business partner (Jennifer Ehle).
This confession causes no less than two members of the group to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side of the sexual equation. That leads to the mental meltdown of a homophobic member of the "New Man" group.
These intertwining stories in Robert Farrar's script play out in ways that are not always predictable and often quite funny. Farrar has created likable blokes for his characters, although none is especially compelling.
The film's gay sensibilities serve to give a curious ambiguousness to all its male characters, even those ostensibly straight. The film also seems to labor under the now-discredited belief that gayness is a matter of choice rather than genetics.
But the film is too weightless to bear much psychological scrutiny. Its players roam a fanciful patch of London where worries about anything other than one's love life are banished.
Cinematographer Ashley Rowe and production designer Richard Bridgland do an excellent job of bringing the viewer into its London milieu without the cloying slickness of a film such as Notting Hill.
BEDROOMS & HALLWAYS
First Run Features
Bedrooms & Hallways Prods. Ltd.
Producers: Ceci Dempsey, Dorothy Berwin
Director: Rose Troche
Writer: Robert Farrar
Director of photography: Ashley Rowe
Production designer: Richard Bridgland
Music: Alfredo Troche
Costumes: Annie Symons
Editor: Chris Blunden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Leo: Kevin McKidd
Jeremy: Hugo Weaving
Sally: Jennifer Ehle
Keith: Simon Callow
Sybil: Harriet Walter
Darren: Tom Hollander
Angie: Julie Graham
Adam: Christopher Fulford
Brendan: James Purefoy
John: Paul Higgins
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating
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