In Sue Kramer’s directing, producing and screenwriting debut, Heather Graham (‘Bobby,’ ‘Boogie Nights’) plays an undeniably charming role as loving sister Gray.
Loving brother Sam is Thomas Cavanagh (TV Series Ed) and the two together definitely get some sibling chemistry going before this vapid plot catches up with them. They run together, dance together and are generally so joined at the emotional hips that those around them think they are lovers.
Fun stuff, and cozy enough in this day and age of the dysfunctional family. Maybe there is still hope, the audience thinks.
The subject of both of their fantasies is beauty Bridget Moynahan playing the part of Charlie (why not Joe?), Sam’s fiancé and the lynchpin in Gray’s precipitous sexual self-realization.
Inspired by writer/director Sue Kramer’s sister Carolyn’s own experience with accepting her sexual orientation, which she knew from when she was “about 10,” and her coming out at age 23, this movie places the loving, maternal female in harms way as she becomes aware of her sexual orientation.
At first Gray is Sam’s sister who is really his mother image, and then she is his sexual competitor.
Is that a spoiler? If so, it’s for the best as audiences deserve to be forewarned that there is little more than that to this inbred New Yorker film.
Imbued with an attractive 1940s patina in its opening scenes, the film starts out with a thoroughly touristy review of New York City landmarks, from the Empire State to the Chrysler, in a really inexcusable substitute for screenwriting.
The characters? Gray, the female ad executive, brother Sam the heart transplant surgeon, and Bridget, the successful and beautiful zoologist with the City at her doorstep. Apparently, sexual identity crises are not limited to the yeasty squatters downtown. Thank goodness for that. But does the audience have to be co-opted into this campaign to make alternate sexual orientations safe for the upper middle class?
Graham does her best to emulate Goldie Hawn and seems to be making progress in that direction. If she has a long way to go, the goal is still a good one and we hope she keeps at it. Her speaking is crisp and clear and her eyes are wide open, inviting the audience to share in the good humor.
Unfortunately, the humor in the sparse script is thin and contrived and the chemistry between Graham and Cavanagh is diluted by the words in the screenplay. The opening Fred Astair / Ginger Rogers dance scene is about as good as it gets.
Yeoman like supporting work by Saturday Night Live Emmy nominee Molly Shannon, Oscar winner Sissy Spacek, Tony winner Alan Cumming and even a live sing-a-long with Gloria Gaynor help to move things along.
But overall such intermittent shots of adrenaline are too few and too far between to support the voids in the dialogue and otherwise lackluster acting.
The subject of gay coming out is a hard one to adopt to popular movies because it is inherently the stuff of a minority. Although the liberal, movie-going general public is more likely to listen to the message, they are not necessarily entertained to the point of buying a ticket.
But undoubtedly producers Jill Footlick, responsible for the landmark ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and Bob Yari (‘Crash,’ ‘The Illusionist’) knew this when they went out a limb with Gray Matters.
Perhaps there has to be some lighter of version of ‘Boys Don’t Cry ‘but such a lighter film that still gets the message across is yet to come.
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