Michael Blanchard | Out / 2020

what wasn’t spoken

by Douglas Messerli

 

Michael Blanchard and Aldo I. Gallinar (screenplay), Michael Blanchard (director) Out / 2020 [16 minutes]

 

Jason (Christoper Breitinger), like so many young gay boys of his age, is in a relationship but has not yet told his parents nor any of his friends outside of his and his lover Alex’s (Steve Brogan) shared female friend Laura (Lauren Henning), a photographer who asks if she might show pictures she’s taken of the couple in a gallery. Even that possibility terrifies Jay.

     Tired of the public rejection of his love, Alex confides in Jay that it is time he tells his parents. Having told his own folks, he suggests things have to change, that he cannot continue the way things are if they’re going to make a go of their relationship as they both desire.

     Jason finally gets up the nerve to tell his mother, who, like many mothers, already know of the child’s sexuality. He explains that he’s dating Alex and his parents have been told about their son’s sexuality and Jason felt that she should also know, crying in the release of having finally admitted the truth. She encourages him to be who is and promises to be there to support him in the morning when he tells his father.

      Meanwhile, Laura gives him copies of the photographs she’s chosen, but asks not to open them until he’s told his father, as a reminder of who he’s fighting for, no matter how his father responds.

      So far this film seems almost uninteresting in its placidity, the plot going basically forward without any the difficulties we might imagine in the coming out process.

       As evening approaches, the time when Jay’s agreed to speak his father, the mother calls Alex’s mother to ask her over for her support, guessing that it may be difficult for her husband. Indeed, it is, as he typically responds to his son’s statement of being gay as a joke, and then simply says that as long as Jason lives in his house he cannot be gay. He’s too young to make such a decision, and he will not permit it.

       Broken-hearted, the boy returns to his bedroom, opening the perfectly innocent photos of him and Alex together, simply enjoying one another’s company. But he and the audience realizes that it will now be extremely difficult for that simple relationship to survive.

       In the midst of all this the film cuts to Alex’s house, where his parents appear to be arguing, but since the plot has continued within Jason’s world we have not made too much of the event.

     But now suddenly, Jason hears his mother and father calling out to him to immediately come downstairs. He leaves his bed confused and fearful of why his presence has been called for. But when he reaches the stairwell he observes his father attempting to carry up Alex, bruised and beaten. His father calls out for his help, and he runs to his friend, pulling him into the living room couch where he holds him, his father and mother looking on, this time both approvingly.

      Obviously, Alex has not previously told his parents and Jason’s mother’s call to them alerted them to the truth. Alex’s father was the brutal monster that Jason feared his own father might be, seriously beating his son. Jason’s father announces he simply found him standing at their front door; but it is clear in his amazement and worry for the boy that he has learned a lesson as well. And seeing his son holding his friend in love appears to help him realize the errors of his own decision.

        We learn nothing further of the situation, and have no idea what will become of Alex, although we can suspect that Jason’s parents may attempt to provide him a home and solace. What one might have further wished, however, is that either of Jason’s parents have called the police to report the abuse of Alex. No parent should be permitted to react in such a homophobic manner, whatever parental rights they claim.

       Finally, it is clear that Alex will need to get his own life in order. Telling lies to achieve what he wants from his lover are not a good basis of a relationship. But the film does not take us in that direction.

       This story presents us with a punch of the dark reality that we know to be part of many young boys’ and girls’ lives when they attempt to tell truth about their sexuality—or in this case even when they don’t.

 

Los Angeles, August 16, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2022).