Tyler Reeves | It's Still Your Bed / 2019

how to keep the boy down on the farm

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tyler Reeves (screenwriter and director) It’s Still Your Bed / 2019 [17 minutes]

 

Imagine his surprise when college boy David (Damian Joseph Quinn) returns home to the family farm to find that his hard-working father has taken on a hired hand, Brent (Cooper Stone) who now sleeps in his old bedroom. David will have to sleep a futon next to his old bed, while the farm hand sleeps nearby.

 

     It’s clearly a problem with David until he actually catches a glimpse of the friendly hunk, who even offers to switch beds: hence the title. But David wouldn’t think of it, and indeed can’t think about much of anything except that he has to resist the temptation to leap into bed with his new roommate, who parades about half-dressed, masturbates (under the covers) late one night, and even is willing to play a duo video game with the former farm boy while grabbing for popcorn out of the bowl that sits on David’s lap. The game gets out of hand as the two young men begin to wrestle with one another and, for one long moment, both contemplating to consummate that which they desire; but since neither is sure of the other’s sexual orientation, they both resist.

      Brent seems to be working out fine as a farmer, and David’s father is impressed with his abilities, but David can only attempt to distract himself from their shared dinner conversations by calling up his college friend, Steven, who is now dating a girl he’s taken off to Phoenix, both planning to show up to visit David on his farm in another day or so.

      Even David’s old girlfriend Emily, when she spots Brent at work, knowing David is gay teases her friend about actually being able to sleep in the same room with such a “hot” beauty. David resists explaining to her that it only results in sleepless nights of frustration. Even the Kleenex in which Brent has wiped up his middle-of-the-night cum is missing in the morning from the spot on the floor where he threw it. David might possibly have enjoyed just the smell of it, an opportunity which I gather in the original cut he had, since I’ve just seen a trailer for the movie which shows him doing precisely that.

      When Steven does finally decide to show up, it’s with his girlfriend Vanessa, and he announces it will be only a few hours. His greatest excitement seems to be his ability to share some new “weed” they’ve acquired. Even more frustrated than usual, David invites Brent along to the isolated spot where he probably hid out with friends in high school.

      The talk between the three is superficial, consisting mostly of a discussion of how big the fish were in a local pond where evidently David and Steven once swam and got scared off. When David describes the fish being as big as a microwave. Brent, who evidently is from a state bordering the Mississippi river, is not impressed, showing them a picture of a paddlefish on his cellphone which they pass around mightily impressed. When it finally reaches David, he attempts to enlarge the view only to accidentally click on a picture of a young man in red shorts for an instant, obviously an image from Grindr or some other gay site.

        While Vanessa and Steven talk on, deciding they’d like to possibly get something to eat, David gently begins to stroke the back of Brent’s hand. When the visitors ask if they’d like to join them, both bow out with a headache and an early rising the next morning as their excuses. They head off back to the farmhouse, quietly entering to find David’s father asleep on the couch. They tiptoe back to the bedroom and once inside they grab hold of one another stripping off each other’s clothes in pure lust.

        This is not a very profound film, and we suspect that their relationship may end up as the “how I spent my summer” variety. Yet we’d like to imagine that, like HD in Mark Christopher’s Heartland, Brent may have found a way to keep the boy down on the farm after he’s seen gay Paree.

 

Los Angeles, September 3, 2021

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2021).