GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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The Houseboy TLA Releasing, Director/Screenplay Starring: Unrated, 81 minutes |
I'll
Be Dead For Christmas
Before we even see the title, the first shot of The Houseboy - the new film by writer/director Spencer Schilly - is extremely provocative. Simon, 30-something and ruggedly handsome, is snuggling with Ricky (Nick May), a much younger man. A third fellow, Simon's equally attractive partner of 10 years, also slides into the bed and embraces Ricky from the other side. Both Simon and his mate, DJ, sport groomed stubble beards while Ricky's boyish face is fringed with soft down, nicely conveying visually the difference in their ages. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, we learn immediately that Ricky is 20 and that his two lovers aren't chicken hawks. The image of Ricky sandwiched between them, besides being very sexy, is idyllic and serene. |
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A longtime threeway relationship is an uncommon theme in queer films and one that is certainly worthy of consideration. The possibilities for drama are infinite. Unfortunately, this is not that film as the triad is barely examined in The Houseboy and we never even know for sure if Simon and DJ are going to dump the kid. Instead, the rest of the film is about Ricky's string of internet hookups, pick-ups and drug binges as he wallows in self pity. In-between these empty trysts, Ricky has a chance to find love when he strikes up a friendship with a young African American named Blake (Blake Young Fountain). Meanwhile, he tells each of his nightly tricks that he plans to kill himself on Christmas Eve to get back at his sugar daddies when they find his body on their return. Most are indifferent, even hostile, to Ricky's revelation. One callously remarks "I said no strings attached." |
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 I
wanted to like The Houseboy but
its promising premise soon fizzles out. Part of the problem is that the
lead actor is too slight a presence to carry the entire film and, after
awhile, you begin to wish that this annoying kid would just kill himself
and put the audience out of its misery. It's not that the filmmakers don't
attempt to imbue Ricky with emotional depth. We learn that he was disowned
by his mother when he came out. There is a quiet power to the phone conversation
where his sister tells him that she is "sad for him" because he will never
have a family and that she doesn't hate him, she just hates his lifestyle.
We realize that the kid is in a bad way because he has been rejected by
both his biological and surrogate familes. My sympathies were briefly
rekindled during the very dramatic moment when one of his tricks
reveals that he had a threeway with Simon and DJ last week and "You weren't
there." |
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Ditto for the parade of men Ricky brings home to the apartment. The realism was at first quite striking. For example, his initial trick was a straight boy who is starting to "dig guys" because they give better head than girls. During one drug-fueled bacchanal, there is a truly creepy scene where Ricky discusses suicide with a stoned party boy who has just written his mother's phone number on his foot in case he dies of a meth overdose. He meets all types during the week leading up to Christmas Eve but after awhile it becomes repetitive. And you begin to question Ricky's death wish when he flees the apartment of a much older man because he is HIV positive. |
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Simon
and DJ are about to leave for a Christmas holiday with relatives. Though
out to their families, Ricky would be a little difficult to explain and
so he is left behind to house-sit the apartment. The idyll established
in the opening shot is quickly burst when Ricky overhears DJ telling Simon
that he wants "a new toy" for Christmas and he presumes that his days
with the two men are over. 
A
good chunk of the film's running time consists of Ricky wandering around
the apartment, feeding Simon's menagerie of pets, and staring at a clown
ornament on the Christmas tree. At first, these often lengthy interludes
were admirable bits of pure cinema in which the young man's boredom and
inner pain is conveyed wordlessly, but this device really gets tiresome
when he models his benefactors' clothes and then makes a "grass skirt"
out of neckties and dances the hula in front of a mirror. 
While
there are great confessional moments sprinkled throughout, the
parts do not add up to a satisfying whole. The
Houseboy seems, at times, like two different films cut
together; one of them is filled with lots of explicit sex and the other,
involving the budding love story between Ricky and Blake, at times resembles
an ABC Afterschool Special - especially the ending. It gets a few
points though for making the one romance an inter-racial one. More information
regarding the dynamics of the kid's relationship with Simon and DJ (a
few flashbacks, maybe?) would have gone a long way towards making this
film more interesting than it is. I've often written that life is messy
and movies shouldn't tie up everything with a neat bow at the end but
this one leaves way too many loose strands. This wasn't the film
that I wanted it to be but, then again, it is called The
Houseboy (and not The Trio or The Threeway)
and so at least it lives up to its title.