there’s no place like home
by Douglas Messerli
Waide Aaron Riddle (screenwriter and director) Lost Hills, CA / 2010 [5 minutes]
A very short rather meaningless pean to what is self-described in this film
as white trailer trash, a now middle-aged man (Waide Aaron Riddle) and his
momma (Robbin Ormand), in a chartreuse trailer.
The only difference in this instance is
that the son is gay, inviting all of his gay friends over for a barbecue. Some,
it appears, head straight for the bed, while the gay boy drinks a few beers
with his friends and his momma, whom for some reason that writer and director
Riddle won’t explain keeps awarding her with kisses. He’s obviously proud of
his mother and his greaseball father’s achievements just to keep a roof over
his head. He’s also proud of his new tattoo. He’s happy, he proclaims, as if we
might suggest he has no right to be.
What their gay baby-boy, now with a
grizzled white beard, does for a living is never established. Why he’s proud of
his lowly life is never explained. This movie appears to simply justify its
joyful presentation of life in a trailer park by showing a lot of hunky gay
men, mostly shirtless beings easily accepted by the curler-haired momma.
This is a narrated tale, with
the voice of Jack Geren, without any true characters or dialogue or even story.
The pretty down-home boys, it appears, are all you need to make you realize
that there’s no place like home, wherever that may be.
Let me assure you, I have
nothing against trailers or the people who inhabit them. I do have a beef,
however, with such an empty shell of a movie.
Los Angeles, December 6, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (2024).
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