Growing up gay in a small conservative town in the Deep South is tough enough, but as well as worrying about his religious parents reactions, 17 year-old choirboy Ricky is also concerned about upsetting Jesus too. Everybody in his close circle of school friends is more comfortable with his sexuality than he is, and even his father who has moved out of the family home just wants his son to accept who he is are. The main cross that Randy has to bear is that he is his mother’s son and like her, has a penchant for high drama. She is in fact even more unbalanced than usual since her youngest child was abducted five years ago and the authorities have still not managed to find any leads on her disappearance.
As Ricky struggles to come to terms with his sexual identity he has vivid wet dreams about a football jock which seem to distress him even more. Then when he is cast in the lead of an all male production of Romeo & Juliet at school, things really start to unwind for him. Soon after whilst making a student film, when his co-star Marshall obviously wants to be more than just friends, Ricky has to finally stop screaming out ‘I’m not gay’ as even he doesn’t believe it anymore.
Director and co-writer Patrik Ian Polk of ‘Noah’s Ark’ fame is something of an exponent in the struggle of African-American gay men dealing with their sexuality and shows both a real understanding and compassion with the subject. He adapted Larry Duplechan’s 1986 novel not only to the present time, but also to Hattiesburg, Mississippi his own home town to make it all more relate-able to a contemporary audience. His young lead actor Julian Walker, an openly gay man, was a local theater student who auditioned for the part and has a voice like an angel and does an admirable job playing the confused Ricky. Polk had the good fortune to cast Mo’Nique as the mother in her first movie role after her Oscar win in ‘Precious’, but she could have toned down her performance as the mother as it often went a little too over the top at times. Unlike the veteran actor Isaiah Washington’s pitch perfect performance as the supportive and understanding father (far removed from the infamous incident when in real-life he was ‘let go’ from his role on TVs ‘Greys Anatomy’ for making a nasty homophobic slur).
If anything Polk (and his co-writer Ricki Beadle-Blair) made Ricky’s coming out far easier than one would have imagined given his situation and the neat tying up of all the plot lines was a little too convenient, but nonetheless it still all made for a well-produced and very enjoyable melodrama.
Ricky needn’t have stressed so much about Jesus, as I think he would have quite liked it too and would not have been upset at all.
