Two blue collared gay men living in a small town in Texas are both finishing chapters in their parallel lives. Gabe, a 35-year-old closeted construction worker is trying to recover from being dumped by his lover who preferred to stay with his wife after all. He can at least seek some consolation that he is still best friends with his ex-wife who he hangs out with on a daily as they are committed to bringing up their young daughter together.
Ernesto, also in his mid 30’s, is a Latino fork truck operator in a lumber yard and is splitting up from his younger boyfriend, whilst at the same time he is visiting his last big romance who is in a coma and on a life support system in the hospital.
Both men are lonely and isolated but despite all the restrictions and sheer lack of opportunities they are both wedded to this one-horse town and have no desire to leave for bigger and possibly greener pastures. In the latter part of the story, these two strangers hook up online and share a tender and sensual night together. The closing shots of the movie are of them making their farewells the next morning and then driving off separately both of them with big grins over their faces and more than a twinkle in their eyes.
Director Yen Tan has co-written with David Lowery a wee gem of a movie with their take on what it means to be gay ….i.e. an outsider …. in small-town America. It’s an acute observation of how these men tempered their lifestyles and blended into such a straight community as they struggled not only with their sexual identity but also with their entrenched beliefs that they would never find love and happiness.
It is a refreshingly quiet and intelligent movie that starts slowly but ensures that by the end you are as committed as the two men that they strike through and find the one thing that was in danger of losing: hope. Tan is helped greatly by the fact that he has avoided the pitfalls of so many low budget gay movies and made some excellent casting choices. Both Bill Heck as Gabe and Marcus DeAnda as Ernesto are pitch perfect.
All in all, a delightful and accomplished movie that shows (once again) that you really don’t need full frontal nudity or cliched stereotypes to make a gay-themed story really work. I do so hope that it finds the audience it so richly deserves.
