A Very Serious Person

I have to say, its not very good. Polly Bergen is fine in this film.The rest are so so. I'm gay and honestly , there are so many cliché's for this time in history that its just sad. We started watching it then turned it off, then decided it would be fun to make fun of the rest of the film. But all said, the basic idea of the film is good. If it was re-written with less contrived lines and better acting it could have actually been prety good. Over all i would not recommend it. IN additon the this is coo coo thinking line is so lame. On top of that the fight in the hair salon is funny because its so bad. The lesbian sister in the room with them while they are trying to get it on is so weird its sad.

An example of all of the worst gay stereotypes all in one movie.

And Charles, why do you speak in that weird pseudo British/high-brow accent, and insist that the kid speak that way too? Did anyone else notice that all of the soundtrack music is exactly the same? You should stick with the good old Hollywood camp drag stuff that you are so good at! Die Mommy Die II, the Sequel!! I don't see the value of spending time and money on a project like this; there are so many REAL life gay youth stories to be told and we should be seeing those, not this garbage. Sheesh, what a waste of time. Embarrassing example of gay cinema.

I'm not gay and the gay people I know are not obvious about it at all, so I can't speak about how fair or unfair the characterizations and stereotypes may or may not be. Lots of movies make unfair stereotypes - in fact, when you compress the life story of people into two hours - stereotypes are often very useful, hopefully they are not cruel. What I do find about this movie is some incredibly real dialogue and situations. Yes, the acting is so bad sometimes its comical - but at its core, this is a smart movie and the main two actors, really come through as real people reminding me to keep trying to be myself and keep doing the best I can. Life is awkward and plans rarely work out, but it is the ones we love and the moments we share with each other that make it all tolerable. Gill and Yon are awesome characters and I could watch them all day.

This movie is more impressive and interesting than it is entertaining. Its entertainment value resides ONLY in Polly Bergen's excellent, unfailingly believable and moving performance as a dying old woman. She's been around all my life (I'm 65), but I never liked her until now.

The movie is interesting because of Charles Busch's surprising decision to play strongly against type, in an unattractive male role, wearing practically no makeup, instead of the exceedingly glamorous female roles he has played forever. I can't say he's very good as the Danish nurse Jan, but he's not at all bad, and I don't particularly like his near-hysterical, mostly unfunny female performances either. This movie's weakest moments come when he drifts closest to his previous work, in manic scenes with the two hairdressers.

The movie is impressive because, over and over again, characters did things that surprised me, in a good way. The dying grandmother, the precocious, apparently-coming-out boy, the gay male nurse - all could have been tediously predictable stereotypes but weren't. That's good writing. The ending is particularly surprising and gratifying.

This movie is also impressive because for the most part Busch succeeds in charting new territory for himself well along in his career, playing restrained, male roles if he wants to. I think he'd get better at it the more he did it. It's always nice when people break the molds they've been cast in.

Good intentions but bad execution and script. Especially P. J. Verhoest and Charles Busch are rather annoyingly unwatchable.