Wherever you are

Dorian Blues inspires coming-out déjà vu.

By Dennis Harvey

Ever since gay cinema grew from being an anomalous concept to a sort of genre in itself (commercially at least), the coming-out story has been its most common denominator. Like high school movies – which coming-out movies often are as well – they appeal because (a) the characters have to be young and cute and have sex on the brain, (b) nearly everyone in the target audience has had similar experiences, (c) nearly everyone wishes their own experiences had been better, so they can take equal comfort in seeing alternate versions both idealized and a whole lot worse.

It's an easily accessible, obvious subject – maybe a little too much so. As first-time hetero directors often make teen comedies that echo the ones before them, so debuting gay directors have cranked out many a coming-out narrative that hits expected marks with merely time-killing efficiency. On the other hand, films like The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, Edge of Seventeen, and The Mudge Boy stick because they recognize that what's really interesting about common experience isn't its universality but the uniqueness of detail.

By that standard, Dorian Blues is a mixed bag. This first feature by writer-director Tennyson Bardwell has a lot of wit, confidence, and energy, qualities that on a first viewing pretty much the sense conceal the fact that there's a whole lot of same-old going on here. Seen a second time (nearly two years after my first viewing; this movie has done some long miles on the festival circuit), it seems more formulaic, with trite choices battling against sharp ones in a constant rock-paper-scissors struggle? But hey, in the realm of coming-out stories, isn't a good first time already wish fulfillment enough?

Dorian (Michael McMillian) is an upstate New York teen whose agonies of adolescent adjustment are as irksome as they are ordinary. He's the odd man out not just at school but at home – his star athlete brother, Nicky (Lea Coco), is favored by their overbearing, conservative dad (Steven C. Fletcher), while bookish loner Dorian is viewed as some sort of factory defective that couldn't be returned. In the mode of Allison Janney's American Beauty character, Mom (Mo Quigley) has long since drifted into some Stepford wife mental ozone where all dysfunctionalitydysfunctional can be safely be ignored. Coming out to these parents is an unpleasant prospect, albeit one that increasingly obsesses the rebellious protagonist.

First, however, he tries revealing that private identity to various others, with variable success: A therapist helps Dorian's self-esteem but creates inevitable transference issues; a Napoleon Dynamite-like schoolmate (complete with geeky dance moves) provides a sexual road Dorian then wishes he hadn't taken. Trying to "straighten out" via a stripper-cum-prostitute has the unexpected result of unlocking her inner Broadway show queen-cum-fag hag.

After initial shock, bro Nicky proves accepting. But he avidly warns against telling Dad, who looks kinda like Charlton Heston and whose prejudices might also require prying from cold, dead hands. Despite having been very clear with his therapist about why this would be a bad idea ("Because it would be the ugliest moment of my life, and I'm not that strong"), Dorian finally takes the plunge. Result: Well, it's lucky he can leave early for college. There, at NYU, he endures first love, first heartbreak, and other maturing adventures.

Set in the early '90s (though the soundtrack's bad indie rock songs sound all too current), Dorian Blues takes a big leaf from the Annie Hall-era book of Woody Allen tricks. For the most part, it's got the flair for funny lines and situations to pull that off.

Yet enough moments ring true to make you wish Bardwell hadn't taken quite so many psychological corners shortcuts for effect, a stupid episode with a "psycho" trick to Mom's abrupt fountain-of-wisdom turnabout. And would Heston name his son Dorian? (Not even his hamster, I'd think.) Our hero, appealingly played by the early-Eric-Stoltz-like McMillian, is a self-proclaimed "stereotypical gay," but he comes off as so droll and personable that it's hard to believe he'd really be a high school pariah. His neurosis and depression are more referenced than evidenced, just present enough for him to float various Allen-esque one-liners. In some ways the most successful character here is Nicky, whose quintessential jockitude doesn't mean he can't be a sensitive guy and a loyal brother too.

Bardwell – who's straight, by the way, and dedicated Dorian Blues to the late gay college friend who inspired the film – is clearly clever and talented and has some heart. There's something to be said for a first film whose faults aren't those of indulgence or excess. Indeed, these 80-odd minutes might well have been fleshed out to 100 or more, giving the film's rapidly etched characters and relationships room to breathe. Then again, maybe this breezy, mildly thorny coming-out seriocomedy doesn't want to go too deep. People keep telling Dorian he "thinks too much." Seen for the first time, this diverting movie doesn't give you the time to.

'Dorian Blues' opens Fri/25 at the Lumiere Theatre. See Movie Clock, in Film listings for showtimes.