GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Between Love & Goodbye TLA
Releasing, Director/Screenplay:
Starring:
Unrated, 96 minutes |
Hurricane
April
I was looking forward to this film and really wanted to like it. I've admired writer/director Casper Andreas' films ever since I watched his first effort, a low budget but beautifully written movie with a terrible title called Slutty Summer. His second film, written with Jesse Archer, A Four Letter Word, was a lot of fun too. His latest, Between Love & Goodbye, is a much more ambitious effort but he bites off a bit more than he can chew with this one. |
 Between
Love & Goodbye begins with a sham wedding. Marcel (Justin
Tensen) doesn't wish to get deported to France and wants to stay in America
with his boyfriend Kyle (Simon Miller). Marcel marries their lesbian friend
Sarah (Jane Elliott) so that he gets a green card and she gets an apartment
lease. It's an old story that's been done numerous times already - on both
versions of Queer As
Folk, on Will & Grace and most notably in Ang Lee's superb
The Wedding Banquet.
But, in this case, the wedding isn't the main plot. |
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 Marcel
should have kept his mouth shut. April moves in with them. It's only supposed
to be a for a couple days until she gets on her feet but a few months pass
and she is still there. Kyle and April start up their old rock band and,
before long, he is spending more time with his sister than he is with his
beau. April hates Marcel, and wants Kyle all to herself, and this volatile
situation has been telegraphed from the moment she entered the apartment.
At first the little annoyances are subtle but suddenly, without warning,
we are in a film that is channeling Valley Of The Dolls. April walks
in on the lovebirds fighting about her and acts as if she is the
injured party. When Marcel actually suggests that she is mooching off of
them and should get a job to help out with the rent, she whines "Kyle, how
can you allow this?" and "Tell him I can stay." |
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 The
predicament is a plausible one but its execution leaves much to be desired.
Before April enters the picture, Marcel and Kyle are shown to be so in love
that it is almost sickening. No matter now manipulative April is, she poisons
their relationship far too easily. Even Iago had his work cut out for him
when he turned Othello against Desdemona. Marcel can be a little whiney
at times but his reaction to his partner's freeloading sister is entirely
justified. How many spouses would agree to an ex-prostitute tranny sibling
moving into their home and then put up with listening to her calling him
a selfish prick? |
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 The
film would work better if April wasn't such a one note bitch because her
scenes border on camp. April is a person with issues, and it was an intriguing
idea to make her transsexual. When a doctor tells April that she is going
to be have to get a mastectomy because of scar tissue, April buzzes off
her hair and becomes Cole. Apparently this isn't the first time that April/Cole
has shifted genders. To say that she is needy would be an understatement
but it's impossible to feel any sympathy for the character. Besides being
a deliberate homewrecker, there is nothing likable about her. She isn't
even fun as a villain. But blood is thicker than water and Kyle always takes
her side over his partner's. |
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 And
then there's the songs. It was cute the first time Kyle and April's band
performed and Kyle sang a passable love song to his boyfriend as we watched
a nice montage of romantic scenes between the lovers. In his previous films,
Andreas was a master at transitional segues that - unlike most indie filmmakers
- actually furthered the plot while the music played. The scenes of their
rock band playing songs that comment on the film's action becomes a device
that gets tiresome very quickly. (It would help if the songs were better.
"What Is the Color Of Love?" Puh-leeze!) |
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 It's
a pity because Andreas has a nice knack for writing heartfelt scenes between
his characters and this film does have a few. The moments when Marcel
begs Sarah to wear make-up and a dress so that she looks less butch for
their immigration interview add some much needed comic relief. From time
to time I would get swept up in the film only to lose interest as soon as
the forced conflicts with April/Cole would intrude again. One can only listen
to April call Marcel a user for so long before it starts becoming
farcical. It was possible to tell this story without resorting to so much
over-the-top melodrama or turning the last act into a rehash of The War
Of The Roses. ("No wonder your mother stuck her head in an oven!"
Marcel screams at one point.) The film might have actually worked better
if it had been a comedy instead. If Kyle and Marcel really loved each other
as much as we are initially led to believe, they should have been able to
weather Hurricane April. But, then again, during the flashbacks of their
courtship, Kyle tells Marcel that he loves him barely two minutes after
meeting him. |
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More
On Casper Andreas: |
The
emphasis in Between Love & Goodbye is
the toxic triangle between Kyle, Marcel and Kyle's manipulative transsexual
sister, April. As Kyle and Marcel are settling into married bliss in an
apartment down the hall from the one owned by Sarah and Marcel, Kyle gets
a sudden call from his estranged sister. They haven't spoken in over a
year but she has hit rock bottom and needs her brother back in her life.Their
mother committed suicide when they were children and, for most of their
lives, they have been codependent on each other. April claims to have
stopped making a living by turning tricks and Marcel tells Kyle that,
because they used to be so close, he should give her a second chance.
Big mistake.
On
the plus side, Between Love & Goodbye
is very crisply filmed and acted. Rob Harmon is an interesting looking
creature as April and as Cole, and she/he could have been a great
character if the lines he was given to deliver were imbued with a little
more subtlety and less of a heavy hand. Casper Andreas has already proved
in Slutty Summer and A Four Letter Word that he can direct;
the problem here is a script that needs a major overhaul. It needs to
emulate