by Douglas Messerli
Ashlee Curtis, Jacob Seidman, and Brian Sutow
(screenplay), Jessie Lee Mills and Brian Sutow (directors) Fall to Fame / 2020
After several hit musical albums, young gay singer Will
(Antonio Marziale), now nominated for a Grammy Award, has been through a long,
tough day of interviews, when suddenly he comes face to face in his last
interview with his former lover, Brandon (Jacob Seidman).
Will’s
producer/manager/agent Danny (Blake Boyd), now Will’s financé for whom he left
Brandon, attempts to stop the interview, but Will insists that he can handle
it, although we have seen him nearly fall into a near-comatose reverie in the
previous interview.
Danny’s
first question concerns the increasing melancholia of Will’s music, to which
Will answers that as he grows older he becomes more self-reflective and
perceives his own failures. So far so good.
Danny
then proceeds to suggest that some may speak about the inappropriateness of his
long relationship with an older man who also serves as his producer and
manager, and again Will seems to answer the question successfully, noting that such
people to do not truly understand their full relationship in which they have so
very much in common, most notably that they both know how to get what they want
out of life.
But the
final question goes unanswered, although through a series of momentary
flashbacks we already know the answer: “Are you happy?”
It’s clear
that Will has traded personal happiness and love for a career, the story of so
very many artists. And the sadness that goes with that often helps to enrich
they artistry, but leaves them with a great sense of emptiness and unfulfillment.
One need only look, for example, at the career of Judy Garland, or even more to
the point of gay fulfillment, the several times someone like Cary Grant was
forced to give up his love affair with Randolph Scott for the sake of his
career.
But
these are merely associative possibilities. As IMDb commentator (under the
moniker Cinema Surf) observes: “…the film is way too short to do justice to a
storyline that hints at complexity. I found that what we finished up with here
is just a bit too incomplete and bitty for me.”
Los Angeles, December 11, 2024 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).
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