GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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In & Out Paramount Home Video, 1997
Director: Screenplay:
Starring:
Rated PG-13, 92 minutes |
Little
Pink Houses
Although Hollywood still badly needed to catch up to independent cinema, by the late 1990s Tinsel Town had made many strides towards depicting LGBT themes in mainstream films. In & Out (1997) was a definite step in the right direction. Directed by Frank Oz from a script by out playwright Paul Rudnick (Jeffrey), In & Out explored coming out as a screwball comedy. |
 In
& Out
was inspired by Tom Hank's acceptance speech when he won the 1994 Oscar
for his starring role in Philadelphia.
He thanked his high school drama teacher, praised him as a fine gay American,
and inadvertently outed him in the process. Kevin Kline stars as Howard
Brackett, a teacher in a small town who finds himself in the same dilemma.
Howard has been living a peaceful life in Greenleaf, a small town in Indiana.
He is beloved by his students and is engaged to be married. In three days,
he will finally wed a fellow teacher, Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack), following
a three year engagement and almost a lifetime of friendship. His life is
perfect in an Andy Griffith Show kind of way. |
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 With
his impending marriage just three days away, Howard suddenly finds himself
questioning his identity. His students tell him that he dresses gay and
he rides a bicycle to school. The boys in gym class cover themselves up
when he walks into the locker room. Howard loves Barbra Streisand and he
becomes self conscious when he receives Funny Girl as a present at
his bachelor party. Howard is also a virgin; he and Emily pledged to wait
until their wedding night before having sex and this also become suspect.
To make matters even worse, he is being stalked by Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck),
a gay television tabloid reporter who is convinced that Howard is a closet
case. Howard denies this until Peter kisses him, long and hard, on the mouth. |
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 The
script to In & Out is Paul Rudnick
at his best. In & Out is a very
funny film that exploits gay stereotypes and small town American values
and turns them upside down and inside out. Everything is a Norman Rockwell
painting until this happens. Rudnick knows how to subvert a stereotype and
make it funny. Howard's barber insists that he's a stylist. When
Howard declares that he is not watching Funny Girl at his
bachelor party, one of the others asks "How about A Star Is Born?"
Howard, pretending that he is talking about someone else, goes to Confession.
When he describes "his friend's" three year, celibate engagement and insists
that "he respects her", the priest says "he's gay" and
suggests that he go have sex with her now. Howard runs straight to
Emily's house, throws her on the bed, and then freaks out when he sees Richard
Simmons on the television. |
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 The
funniest scene involves Howard's last ditch effort to prove to himself that
he is straight. Discarding his usual wardrobe, he dresses in jeans and flannel
and listens to a self-help tape called "Be A Man - Exploring Your Masculinity."
The voice on the tape extols such macho virtues as punching someone and
biting his ear. Grabbing his crotch, he repeats after the tape "Yo," "Hot
damn," and "What a fabulous window treatment!" (The tape yells back "That
was a trick!") Then "I Will Survive" starts playing and he is told that
"manly men don't dance under any circumstances" and "at all costs, avoid
rhythm, grace and pleasure." He resoundedly flunks the test as the tape
yells at him to stop dancing and stop waving your arms around!
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 The
assembled cast is perfect. Kline, whose gift for comedy was legendary in
A Fish Called Wanda, knows just when to be over the top and when
to hold back in order to get the most laughs. Joan Kusack is hysterically
funny as the bride-to-be who lost 70 pounds for Howard and then all of her
self esteem when she is left at the altar. Tom Selleck, who was the very
embodiment of 1970s testosterone television, allowed himself to he cast
against type. He is properly full of himself as the tabloid TV reporter.
Matt Dillon is very funny as actor Cameron Drake (and the clips from his
gay soldier movie, To Protect And Serve, brilliantly skewer the conventions
of self-serving Hollywood "message films"). Debbie Reynolds and Wilford
Brimley are a hoot as Howard's flabbergasted parents and Bob Newhart portrays
the homophobic principal as a sanctimonious wimp. |
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 There
were only a couple of things that bugged me about the film. Comedies don't
always conform to all the rules of logic, but it seemed a tad far fetched
to me that Howard could be the football team's coach and not know
that he was gay until he was 40. It happens; I know quite a few guys personally,
especially Bears, who came out in their 40s, even 50s. People in the closet
sometimes can be oblivious but I think constant exposure to naked
young men in a locker room might have tipped Howard off earlier. |
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 There
were objections to In & Out from
the gay community, and some of them are valid. Small towns like the one
depicted here are often bastions of homophobia and many felt that In
& Out trivialized the entire coming out process. It's true
that Howard is about to lose his teaching position - and it is appropriate
that this detail was included in the script - but the cornball Capra-esque
ending, in which the students and then the entire town stands up at a graduation
ceremony and claims that they are gay too, stretched credibility even in
a comedy. I know it was meant to be uplifting but it goes on for way
too long until it just becomes cloying; Rudnick is a great gag writer
but he is often guilty of lathering on the sentimentality just a little
too much. |
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 The
film is firmly on Howard's side but it also still completely affirms wholesome
American values, even more than The Birdcage
did the previous year. In & Out
ends with a wedding; for a moment we are led to believe that is Howard and
Peter's but it turns out that Howard's parents are renewing their vows.
Even so, I laud the film for having Peter tell Howard that he did the right
thing when he didn't marry Emily - even as Howard is screaming in
front of the TV cameras, "I just came out at my wedding and Martha Stewart
is furious!" |
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But, all quibbles aside, watching In & Out again ten years later was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It was as funny as I remembered it and, aside from some corniness at the end, quite satisfying as cinema. Rudnick and Director Oz were a perfect team. Unfortunately, the less said about their next collaboration, The Stepford Wives (2004), the better.
More about Paul
Rudnick: More about Frank
Oz: Lauren Ambrose
also appears in: Glenn Close also
appears in: |
Until
his life gets turned upside down when a former student, Cameron Drake
(Matt Dillon), wins the Best Actor Oscar for playing a gay soldier. As
he accepts the award, Cameron names his high school English teacher, Howard,
as being the greatest influence in his life, and then hastily adds "...and
he's gay." The entire town was watching and Howard is soon hysterically
trying to reassure everyone that he's not gay. Reporters swoop down, like
vultures, on Greenleaf and Howard is in the middle of a media circus,
fleeing questions like "Should gays be allowed to handle fresh produce?"
and "Do you know Ellen?"
In
& Out
was a subversive film by mainstream Hollywood standards but it was still
packaged so that it would appeal to the straights, as well as the gays,
in the audience. Still, it was a sign that things were changing. The long
kiss between Kline and Selleck was widely reported in the media at the
time. While it is true that the scene was comic, rather than romantic,
it was still daring by Hollywood standards. It's worth noting that test
audiences responded well to the kiss and even felt that it should have
been even longer.