To celebrate the arrival of the
gay-themed romantic-comedy Is It Just Me? on Blu-Ray we are
republishing our review of the movie.
Blaine (played by Nicholas Downs) is a
fairly nice & cute young writer who's looking for romance rather
than just “what's behind the zipper,” and who blogs about his
perpetual – and to date, unsuccessful – search for love. Xander
(David Loren) is an adorable young cowboy from Texas who's also
looking for more than just sex, who loves Blaine's writing, and who
might just be the guy Blaine's been looking for. But after they hit
it off online and then on the phone, Blaine realizes that (for
reasons I won't go into) he's unwittingly been displaying the online
profile pic of his buff go-go-boy roommate, Cameron, instead of his
own picture. Blaine's self esteem isn't the greatest, and he
immediately starts spazzing out at the thought that the connection he
and Xander seemed to have with each other wouldn't have been there if
Xander knew what Blaine really looked like. So he convinces Cameron
to participate in an ill-advised role reversal when they finally meet
Xander face-to-face, to determine whether Blaine's brains or
Cameron's brawn will win the cowboy's heart. All of which leads to
hilarious results.
Well, okay. Not so much hilarious as
gently amusing and sweet. It's undeniable that the film relies on too
many contrived plot points – the initial mistaken identity thing is
just one of several – and it took some pretty determined suspension
of disbelief to get past some of them. And to be honest, we all
pretty much know how everything is going to end up. (After all, this
is essentially a gay date flick, and who watches a date flick
expecting an unhappy ending?) But in the way that matters most, the
movie works: We care about the characters, enough to get past the
contrived circumstances and the questions of whether this or that
little bit of business really makes sense.
The acting is a big help in making the
characters, and their happiness, matter to us. Downs imbues Blaine
with enough vulnerability to make us root for him even when he's
acting incredibly stupidly and on those few occasions when we know
he's (pardon the expression) completely full of shit. And when he
believes Xander has slept with Cameron (as a result of the
foolishness he himself set in motion), the palpable look of confused
hurt on his face feels absolutely genuine, as do the despairing tears
he later cries.
Loren doesn't have to push his
portrayal of Xander as far, but he does a good job of taking the
character where he needs to go. Xander is written to be such a dream
come true in so many ways that it probably would have been easy to
turn him into a two-dimensional caricature of The Perfect Gay Man.
But Loren makes him feel real – even with a smile that's too good
to be true.
The role of Ernie (Bruce Gray),
Xander's landlord/roommate and confidant, was an unexpectedly
pleasant surprise. Ernie is an older gay man whose heart was broken
decades ago, and who consequently has given up on love, at least for
himself. Gray plays the character with enough camp to be endearing
but not annoying, and when Ernie gives Xander some important advice
near the end of the film, Gray's delivery is nicely poignant without
becoming maudlin.
Speaking of advice, I always like it
when a film is able to express a few truths here and there –
whether through the characters' words or purely thematically – and
this one manages to get some good points across, without sounding
preachy. Points such as: The fact that someone's not perfect doesn't
mean he's not the right guy for you. (And it doesn't matter in what
ways he's not perfect, because nobody's perfect.); Sometimes the most
self-fulfilling prophecies are those caused by our own low self
esteem; Don't think you've got all the time in the world to find what
you want – look for it now; But even so, it's never too late (even
if you may have thought it was).
Enjoyable characters, moments of
genuine feeling, and overall sweetness go a long way to overcome an
admittedly predictable plot, and leave me happy to recommend Is It
Just Me? for an evening's light & fluffy entertainment.
But hey, maybe that's just me.
(Is It Just Me? is also
available on DVD. Check out the movie's trailer embedded in the
right panel of this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)