I think I'd rather not...

>> See any more movies like I Think I Do

by MATTHEW HAYS

The buzz on I Think I Do at last September's Toronto International Film Festival was that it was a hot, fun and flashy indie comedy, the latest to feature gay characters in pseudo precedent-setting roles. The ominous warning signs were quick to follow, however, when critic Anita Gates, writing in the New York Times, called the film a "gay Four Weddings and a Funeral."

The setup: Alexis Arquette (one of many in the famous thespian clan) plays a young man in love with his college roomie (Christian Maelen), who's straight. One night at a party, surrounded by their friends (who look a bit too much like the cast of Friends), Arquette and Maelen get into a wrestling match. After Arquette grabs Maelen's butt, things get traumatic when Maelen punches Arquette in the face. Cut to several years later when the gang, who have since been separated geographically, are all reconvening for the wedding of two straight types. Arquette is now happily involved with a rather vain (but gorgeous) soap star. The hitch is, Maelen has since come out of the closet and wants to start a relationship with Arquette.

Oh, can you imagine the sparks that fly? The endless possibilities! Writer/director Brian Sloan has set out to create a droll romantic comedy, with lots of witticisms exchanged between silly characters in wacky mix-ups. He's also making a bid to take a genre which is generally thought of as straight and infusing it with gay characters. We gay people in the audience are supposed to feel honoured to be a part of this cherished tradition; instead, I came away feeling like Sidney Poitier in the middle of one of those bad '60s movies directed by well-meaning liberal white directors.

When Four Weddings and a Funeral first came out, I recall one gay man saying he felt we should be happy for the gay representations in the film, however fleeting. Okay, so one of the gay characters drops dead, went the argument--at least he didn't die of AIDS. And the gays in that movie had some funny lines, so maybe straight people would come out of the movie liking us more.

Some might actually call I Think I Do radical, in that it takes the sacred institution of marriage (previously an exclusively het domain), and makes it more inclusive. But the whole thing feels terribly condescending. It should come as no surprise that this thing was a hit in Toronto. There, the worst batch of homosexuals in the country are just dying to bend over and be fully penetrated by capitalism. This movie, essentially about rather pathetic husband hunting, makes romance seem all the more commodified: just add "husband" to your shopping list, along with the right condo (the kitchen must have an island), a Gold Card and a BMW (the correct model, we wouldn't want to fuck that up).

I'll take Montreal's rather grubby alternative, where everyone seems to be single and no one knows where they'll be next week let alone in five years, a place where I feel most comfortable trashing a horrifically assimilationist film like I Think I Do.

I Think I Do opens Friday, June 12 at the Cinéma du Parc