April, 1999
Bedrooms And Hallways
(15) Kevin McKidd, Jennifer Ehle, Simon Callow, Tom Hollander, Harriet walter. Dir: Rose Troche. UK. 1998. 96mins.
by Alexander Walker
Kevin McKidd's droopy thirtysomething goes to a masculine assertiveness session run on voyeuristic lines by guru Simon Callow, and "comes out", in every sense, with his love for another moody single, hunky Celt, James Purefoy. But the group-sex comedy that ensues, wants to swing every which way.
It makes a big case for the fluidity of sexual identities ("being looser with conventional parameters", as the press notes snappily put it), as if a pinch of homo, hetero or bi were a guaranteed box-office mix. Jennifer Ehle's sparky organic-foodstore owner comes between the boys; but while two may be company, three's a menage too many in a film composed almost entirely of gay or straight stereotypes, including Harriet Walter's arch-feminist, Tom Hollander's campy smartass and Hugo Weaving's estate agent with a fetish for having kinky sex in the houses on his books.
It's all a bit past its sell-by date; even Ashley Rowe's glitzy photography can't conceal the staleness of the package's contents. Like several British movies recently directed by visiting Americans - this time Rose (Go Fish) Troche - the cast risk dislocated jaws keeping up an overly insistent larkiness that suggests they're giving the foreigner what she came here to find. It's as gay a fantasy as Queer As Folk, and twice as flashy.
I am informed that not one penny of National Lottery money was invested in it by the Arts Council. But I have a feeling that, for once, this speaks well for the Arts Council. You can't lose 'em all.
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