REVIEW
THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB
Starring Dean Cain and Timothy Olyphant
Directed by Greg Berlanti
Opens Friday, March 9
Plaza Theatre
In the past, Hollywood has turned to the theatre more times than not when bringing the stories of gay men to the screen. While films like Jeffery and Love! Valour! Compassion! are funny and successful, they carry with them the baggage of the stage plays they are adapted from, and are populated with characters who are aware of their audience and constrained by theatrical dialogue. The Broken Hearts Club distinguishes itself from other films of the genre partially because this film about a group of twenty-something gay friends making the most of L.A.’s singles scene was written for the screen.
Halfway through the film, one of the characters launches into a tirade about how the canon of gay cinema has been restricted to films about gay men who are dying of AIDS, or who are confidants to attractive heterosexual women. While The Broken Hearts Club is able to avoid these clichés it does very little to break out of the mould of a typical romantic comedy. What the film lacks in originality, it recovers in entertainment.
The cast may be portraying little more than caricatures of different personality types, but they are able to make them much more than that. They are gay, and they talk about being gay, but in the end the film is about relationships, not homosexuality – this makes the film far less issue-oriented than you would imagine.
Writer-director Greg Berlanti delivers a solid script, filled with great one-liners and consistent laughs. As the film progresses, it moves into more dramatic scenarios, which are heavy-handed but forgivable because the rest of the film succeeds so well. This film does not break new ground, but in the end The Broken Hearts Club is just trying to tell a story and be entertaining – and because it doesn’t take itself too seriously it does just that. |
