Lovell Holder | You Say Hello / 2019

note to will

by Douglas Messerli

 

Daniel Talbott (screenplay), Lovell Holder (director) You Say Hello / 2019 [22 minutes]

 

Will (Chris Bellant), born obviously to a family of some wealth, has apparently recently been having problems. Like so many late bloomers, this young man has discovered that he’s gay even if he hasn’t yet had a sexual encounter. But for him, even that realization with the possibility of his mother and sister’s censure, sends him into a deep fear which he plans to resolve with a gun he carries in his backpack.

     He escapes to his family’s beach house where he intends to commit suicide—bit not until he’s at least tried out gay sex to celebrate his birthday and to see what he’ll be missing in the past and in the future he plans to cut short.

    Scrolling through his screen, Will picks the comeliest young man he can find, Mike (Will Pullen). Fortunately, Mike is also empathetic and thoughtful, a man who when he discovers it’s Will’s first time takes it slow and easy, explaining just how nervous he was the first time. Mike gives him a few kisses, encourages him to join him in the hot tub, and finally after a number of beers, edges him toward the bed.

    No sex is represented in this squeaky clean, sanitized version of the supposed end of a gay boy’s life. And, in fact, there is little made and even established about gay life, which is strange since it apparently is what has triggered Will’s crisis. Mike, furthermore, establishes that he has a girlfriend who knows about his regular nightly hustles (by day he is a waiter in an unnamed restaurant).

    When he admits to Will that he’s basically bisexual, he even thanks him for not asking the obvious question: “Which sex do you prefer?”

     Mike wakes up with Will missing from the bed; he’s removed himself after sex, evidently, to the couch. The empathetic escort visits the refrigerator for another Dos Equis, and discovers Will’s suicide note to his family. He dresses and after a last, long good hug, leaves.

     Will eventually discovers that Mike has written him a note, reporting that he’s taken away the backpack and the gun, which now is deep in the ocean, suggesting that he call up his mother and sister and have dinner with them. Mike also suggests he find a boy to take home or at least flirt with so that he might discover that he is himself is a person with something to give to others.

     So the bisexual hustler saves the gay boy’s ass. At least for now. God forbid, when he finally finds someone and establishes a relationship, if should fall apart!

     And, no, as my cynical last remark hints, I don’t believe one iota of this well-meaning short film. Yes, it’s hard to admit you’re different from most of the others, and the thought of having to live with that fact or have your family discover it often makes coming out seem insurmountable. But Will is now old enough that the actions of a terrified teenager seem no longer appropriate, unless writer Daniel Talbott and director Lovell Holder are insisting that boys whose parents own a gated beach house never grow up.

     But most importantly, despite all the plays I’ve seen about good-hearted prostitutes, I don’t for one second believe in this saintly hustler. A good man may be hard to find, but a good hustler is even harder. I mean who would dare fuck a boy for cash and follow it up by reading a personal letter to his family and stealing his gun—even with the best of intentions? If prostitution was legal in California (and it’s not), theft is punishable with jail time, and opening up a letter not addressed to you is, at the very least, a misdemeanor. But more importantly, if you’re out hustling at night, the chances that you interfere with someone else’s life, I’d argue, are pretty slim. It just isn’t in the gay hustler’s playbook, no manner how nice that paid visitor is. And this particular hustler won’t even tell his client the name of restaurant in which he works for fear that he’ll visit the place and possibly get him fired.

    Perhaps I should write my own note to Will. “Dear Will, let’s start all over again: You say hello, invite the man you called over up to fuck you in, and go to it. You might find out that you like sex so much you won’t want to blow your brains out. And besides, your mother (Wendy Vanden Heuvel) seems to know that something hasn’t been right with you, that you’re depressed, and she’s worried about you; I can only imagine that your being gay has crossed her mind. So give her a try!”

    But maybe this logical series of events I have proposed had not crossed the minds of the film’s creators, who have argued in an interview with Ben Turner that Will’s problem is one of general depression, robbing him even of his latent gay guilt, after they have already stolen away the hustler’s gay preferences. Why even describe this film, then, as being of LGBTQ interest? If Will’s just depressed and wants a good fuck before he kicks the bucket, why even write Will as a gay man? Originally the hustler was supposed to be a Serbian female prostitute, clearly also with problems of her own, so I gather something got confused in the script. The IMDb credits even list a character I didn’t encounter in the film, Seth (played by Zack Kozlow). Let’s hope at least that what with all this confusion the character didn’t go out buy a new gun and change the plot.  

 

Los Angeles, August 29, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2025).