Defying Gravity is a wonderful film. It's both humorous, as well as heartbreaking, and is a film that I look forward to watching again.
Griff (Daniel Chilson) is an all American super jock frat boy. He plays hoops with a Nerf ball in his dorm room, and parties it up while flirting with the girls at football tailgating parties. Griff, however, is also carrying on a sexual relationship with Pete (Don Handfield) behind everybody's back.
After being witness to a gay bashing that leaves Pete seriously injured, Griff is forced to deal with his own sexuality, as well as the conflict of outing himself in order to bring Pete's attackers to justice. Say nothing, and he lets down somebody he realizes truly loves him, and wants more than just sex. Come forward, and he'll have to face his frat brothers, as well as himself and the feelings he's discovering he has towards Pete.
Both Beautiful Thing and Get Real dealt with "coming out" in a syrupy sort of way. This isn't to say those films are bad; Quite the contrary. They are both excellent films that I have seen and own. What I'm getting at is that it's nice to see a film that forgoes the syrup and plays it in less of a fairy tale way.
Given the fact that this was the first role for many involved, some of the acting shows strain, and ends up looking amateurish, but that didn't bother me as much as it usually would, and in fact, I think it made the performances seem all the more real. The relationship between Griff and his best friend Todd (Niklaus Lange) is both convincing and sweet. Todd is truly trying to understand and support Griff, even when he has no idea what his friend is going though. The only major drawback I can pick out is that the relationship between Griff and Denetra (Linna Carter) isn't fully explored, and I was left with wanting to see more.
Defying Gravity is not a glossy smooth production like either of the films I mentioned above, but that's not a fault, and shouldn't be considered one. Occasionally uneven acting aside, this is a wonderful film that truly has heart and I hope everybody will give it a chance.
My grade: A
