GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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A Very Serious Person Wolfe
Video, Director:
Screenplay: Starring:
Unrated, 95 minutes |
The
Anal Retentive Swede
Outrageous camp is Charles Busch's forte. I've enjoyed local theatre productions by Buffalo United Artists of two of his campiest plays, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Psycho Beach Party. His brand of drag humor and parody is ideally suited for the stage; the material worked in spurts in the Psycho Beach Party movie but proved deadly in the boring film version of Die, Mommie, Die! Busch's drag creations are legendary but Die, Mommie, Die! was proof that the mere visage of Busch looking fabulous in drag isn't enough to carry a feature film. |
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Busch comes very close to finding a similar part, understated and hardly fabulous, in his latest film, A Very Serious Person. I read the press release with a little trepidation; Busch not only stars in the film but he also co-wrote and directed as well. This is often a bad sign but there's an old saying not to judge a book by its cover; this screener had been sitting around for awhile and I thought I'd give it a chance. |
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 Jan
is one of the most bizarre characters I have ever seen in a movie. He looks
like a cross between William Hurt in Kiss
Of the Spider Woman and Terrence Stamp in Priscilla:
Queen Of The Desert. His features are severe, his long hair is pulled
back in a ponytail and he speaks with a thick Scandinavian accent. His brusque
manner provides the core to the film's offbeat humor. He is a control freak
Florence Nightengale crossed with Mike Meyers' uptight and prissy Dieter
character from "Sprockets." (I kept waiting for him to announce "Now's the
time on 'Sprockets' when ve dance!!!") He is wont to spout such nuggets
of wisdom as "Why is it necessary to walk around grinning like the village
idiot... be grateful for five minutes of happiness twice a year." His demeanor
is so Scandinavian that he is actually reading Kierkegaard in one
scene. |
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 Grandma
adores Jan while Gil and their housekeeper, Betty, quickly tire of the authoritative
nurse barking commands and demanding order. When Gil has a hissy fit one
afternoon because his Grandmother is too tired to watch Gone With The
Wind with him, Jan drags the screaming drama queen outside and sprays
him with a hose. Afterwards, Gil begins to bond with the Danish nurse and
Jan's attentions towards the boy - especially as his patient grows sicker
- become more and more parental. Gil intuits that Jan is gay and begins
to ask questions and the stand-offish Swede's discomfort is hilarious. |
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 This
being a movie starring Charles Busch, one wouldn't be blamed for thinking
that he will spend the film's running length teaching the kid to be fabulous.
But Busch subverts the expectations of his audience and behaves in reverse.
Because Gil will be going to live with relatives when his Grandmother dies,
Jan fears that the boy will be in a less accepting environment and actually
tries to discourage Gil from being himself. Gil is a wonderful free spirit
while Jan, horrified when Gil wants to wear a dress for a gag carnival photo,
insists that the lad be a more "serious person." Like him. |
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 For
the most part, aside from some annoying background music that sounds like
it came from television's The Odd Couple, the first hour was a pleasant
surprise. I love quirky comedies and the humor here is offbeat and usually
deadpan instead of going over the top. (An example: Gil is running to keep
up with Jan and asks "Don't you ever sweat?" and the nurse robotically replies
"Only commonplace people sweat.") The unique relationship between Gil and
his Grandmother is very touching without being cloying. "Can I have your
gold bracelet when you're gone?" he asks, early on. Even the scenes where
he learns to swim to please his Grandmother manage NOT to be nauseating.
We know that she is going to die before the film ends and, remarkably, her
illness isn't milked for every last drop of pathos. Gil is even allowed
to get angry during a scene when she becomes delirious and doesn't recognize
him. |
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 But,
like so many of the films that I get to review, this one starts out promising
and them implodes. Unfortunately, the last half hour becomes insufferably
maudlin, culminating with my most dreaded of queer film plot developments
when Jan decides that he wants to be the boy's father. At that point, it
was all I could do to keep my finger off of the fast forward button on my
remote. Thankfully, the scene where everyone dresses up to perform Gil's
special play for his Grandma (Busch's only appearance in stunning drag)
is cut short when she has a seizure and they have to call an ambulence.
The film's initial emphasis shifts away from Gil around the halfway mark
and then the vanity project I feared materializes as Busch's Jan character
dominates the rest of the story. |
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More
On Charles Busch:
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 CLICK THE ABOVE BANNER TO PURCHASE THIS WOLFE VIDEO TITLE |
I
mean this in all respect when I write that Busch gave his greatest performance
as a gay inmate on HBO's prison series,
The
first hour of A Very Serious Person
is very touching tale of a young lad who is beginning to realize that
he is gay. Gil (P.J. Verhoest) is 13, a budding artist who likes to listen
to opera and pretend that he is Marie Antoinette. He lives with his beloved
Grandmother (Polly Bergen) and they are vacationing at her summer home.
Grandma's health is rapidly failing and Gil knows that this will be their
last summer together. The household is taken by surprise by the arrival
of their new, and highly unorthodox, live-in nurse, Jan (Charles Busch).
For starters, no one was expecting Jan (pronounced Yaan) to be a man.
Still,
I loved most of the first hour and the blurb on the DVD box is correct
in stating that this is "Charles Busch as you've never seen him before."
His character is a trip to say the least and so unlike the fabulous women
he usually portrays. The sheer weirdness of it all got my attention and
I was captivated. The performances are terrific across the board and the
movie is competently filmed. Gil's coming of age is sensitively handled
rather than just being a typical misfit fish out of water story and Jan
is one of the most unusual mentors you will ever encounter in a movie.
A Very Serious Person certainly
wasn't what I was expecting and that, in itself, is a rare thing. I just
wish that the third act lived up to the rest of the film.