Bruno Rose | Lost in Expression / 2015

fraternity row

by Douglas Messerli

 

Bruno Rose (screenwriter and director) Lost in Expression / 2015 [21 minutes]

 

Bruno Rose’s university graduation projection, Lost in Expression, although hardly innovative in its narrative, is not quite like most other LGBTQ college films that I’ve seen to date. Yes, at the center of this film is a gay couple who suffer a near break-up, in part for one of the couple’s lack of complete commitment and, more obviously because of the other boy’s sexual cheating—elements you can find in a great many films of this sort. Even the “expression” that has been “lost” are the simple words “I love you.”

     What’s different is that the central figure of this short film, Jace (Casey Mills), is a somewhat overweight, heavily tatted president of a party fraternity whose members all know that he’s evidently trying out a gay relationship with a much younger and far cuter student, Devin (Eddie Waters). There are plenty of zaftig sorority gals who would be happy to welcome him back into the straight fold if the relationship fails. And his best friend Miles (Wilson James Meredith) is only too ready to accompany him back to their football outings. Unable to even know what flowers to select for Devin’s birthday, Jace could clearly use a few sessions from the “Gay Eye on the Straight Guy” gang.

     The night after he breaks up with Devin, finding him standing half naked in their kitchen with another young twink, Chris (Allen Crowell Jackson), Jace’s fraternity fellows celebrate an important fraternity bash which their president surely can’t miss. And several of their members, including Freddy (the truly “pretty boy” singer and director Rose), having heard the news, deeply sympathize.  Indeed, if guys like Freddy had been members of fraternities in my day, even I might have pledged. Things seem certainly to have changed in college fraternities from the way they used to be portrayed and still are in Hollywood movies.

      A few drinks and Jace is even ready to try out a flirty sorority girl to whom he previously was connected; it doesn’t work.

      Indeed, we soon discover, Jace is a haunted being, never truly able to recover from the night his own father left his mother and him as a child for another woman, a scene that is played out a few times in the movie, in fact, perhaps once too many times since we quickly comprehend that his having walked out of the relationship is an act similar to his own father’s simply leaving, the family having to wipe out the memory of his existence.

      It doesn’t help the situation any that Jace has long been unable to fully express his emotions, and was probably one of the reasons for his lover’s seeking out sex with someone else. But the fact that Miles’ girlfriend Michelle just happens to bring along Chris, who Miles describes as Jace’s “homewrecker” certainly doesn’t help.

      Drunk and confused, Jace ends up at a pier where we fear he might have other things in mind. But evidently, he’s texted Devin, who shows up as apologetic as possible but also still resenting the fact that Jace has just left without saying anything.

      When Devin is finally able to ask his friend what he wants, since it was he, this time, who sent a message, Jace finally breaks down and expresses his deep hurt. What he wants he insists is for Devin help him forget their relationship, to disappear—just as he has attempted to do—out of his life. He pushes Devin away, who falls in the sand, but he too falls down beside him, and before either of them can think about the situation, they have interlinked hands.

      Interestingly, Rose also includes an “alternate” ending in which Devin actually does walk away before Jace finally calls him back to tell him he loves him. Although both suggest the same result, I prefer the first, since we can’t expect a man who has spent most of his life trying to tamp down the emotions he feels to find full expression for them in one single night.

 

Los Angeles, September 27, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2022).