Can you say atrocious overacting? Can you say gay stereotypes as offensive as step-and-fetch-it is to blacks? It's almost looking at an amateur college production...only worse. Melanie LaPatin's acting is so over-the-top as to be laughable and never for a moment even fleetingly believable. Giving her the benefit of the doubt based on the other actor's weak performances, one would have to blame the director...or wait, it seems like it took TWO directors to create this mess. Didn't either Daniel Beahm or Erika Randall Beahm (the dueling directors here) have enough sense to yell CUT and rein in LaPatin, or Benji Schwimmer's flaming interpretation of a gay dancer which is such a stereotypical cliché that every moment he is on the screen, it is on the verge of being offensive -- not quite the equivalent gay black-face, but close enough. He is a very talented dancer, but doesn't have the acting chops needed to make his character believable or even likable. Better they should have cast a real actor for the part of the gay friend and had Schwimmer step in for the dance sequences.
Then there is the problem of the director(s) not being able to decide if they wanted to make a drama (schmaltzy soap opera to be more accurate), a comedy (with nary a real laugh anywhere to be found) or just a really BAD musical. Yes, there are long, l o o o n g dance sequences and full blown songs that are inserted for no discernible dramatic purpose, nor do they move the story forward, but seem to be thrown just because they were able to get the use rights. And besides being superfluous to the story-line or to enhance the characterizations, some of them had everyone in the room groaning in pain and shouting, "Not ANOTHER one!" and "WHERE IS THE EDITOR?!" when the song went on and on thru multiple verses.
This is what happens when good meaning people want to make a "socially provocative" movie about a subject that they care about (the "gay dilemma,") but they don't have a powerful script or the talent to create characters that an audience will care about. Just slapping the label "gay" on characters isn't enough to make a good movie. Exacerbate that by casting actors who can't make characters who are believable or likable, and you have the disaster LEADING LADIES.
The one bright spot in this whole unfortunate mess is Laurel Vail who plays the put-upon, mousy sister and who, despite the sometimes absurd dialogue she is forced to recite and the other nonsense going on all around her, manages to hold her own, giving a quite real and touching performance. That said, it is nearly not enough to make this a movie worth spending time on.
