Justin Nicholas James | Hearts and Hotel Rooms / 2007

room no. 8

by Douglas Messerli

 

Justin Nicholas James (screenwriter and director) Hearts and Hotel Rooms / 2007 [13 minutes]

 

Jimmy checks into a hotel room, no. 8, where Brian is already waiting, the two planning for a full night of sex. Just as quickly the film rewinds itself, taking them to the bar where they met allowing us the witness their meet-up.

    Now in the hotel bed, they fall back into the pillows enjoying each other’s beauty. But then Jimmy has second thoughts. His argument that there are only 2 million male homosexuals in the US (his guesstimate), and the fact that the two boys have met-up and come together among such a small pool of choices has to mean something. He’s afraid of blowing it on a one-night stand. We can’t be together forever, he argues. Nothing can be forever. We’ll get bored, and we’ll fight. So he wants this night, perhaps their one and only night, to be unique and special.

     He makes up his mind to “do it,” but it’s got to be memorable. They consult a fortuneteller, who agrees that they are the perfect choice for the evening. But in the very next scene, we see Jimmy sitting in the room alone with no one there. And we realize that this is the second visit, the year later they will soon plan together to once again meet up. He waits, taking off the ring Brian has previously given him.

     Back on the first evening, Brian has gone to purchase some special candles. And finally, the boys kiss and make love. But the cameraman has evidently gotten and tired and gone home.

     Just as suddenly it is morning and they’re leaving the room, both of them having a feeling that they’re now missing out on something, while promising to meet back in the room on the next August 8 in room 8—coincidentally, I swear, the very day in which I chose to review this film.

      Now that year later, Jimmy sits alone, trying to write a letter to the missing Brian.

    Finally, we see Brian walking down the hall, but by this time Jimmy has left. He finds Jimmy waiting for a taxi in from of the hotel, and puts the ring back on his finger.

    However, there is a problem, it seems to me, in the very premise of this short by US director Justin Nicholas James. The more you work to make something special, I’d argue, the less magical will be the result. If you find someone, as these two evidently have way back at the bar, who seems right, my advice is go straight to bed and enjoy the pleasure, then sit down and make a schedule to meet up again. The movie seems to lose its way while the boys debate whether or not they should have sex, visit a fortuneteller, swim in the hotel pool, go shopping, etc., all in the hopes of finding the right ingredients to make the night memorable

      The biggest question, moreover, is why can’t they go home together the next night, or if they’re still living with their parents, why can’t they meet up again the next day in a new location or even the hotel itself. Why wait another year? Evidently, they are both travelers, perhaps to Mexico, since the hotel is called Hotel Del Flores. The film makes no attempt to explain why they can meet up only in a hotel and need to wait an entire year to have sex again.

 

Los Angeles, August 8, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).