Kevin Lewis | Discreet / 2025

nominally gay

by Douglas Messerli

 

Kevin Lewis (screenwriter and director) Discreet / 2025 [14 minutes]

 

Wesley (Bailey Plumbley) is a handsome young man who clearly has a very low sense of self-esteem. He desires another young man he sees in the gym, Matt (Jason Diers), a rosy cheeked confident hunk—at least so it appears.

    Wesley goes on line, hoping to hook up with Matt, and apparently succeeds, since, after he tries out a couple of practice runs on his own internet, we see him knock on an apartment door, Matt answering. Obviously, they’ve made a Grindr date.

     But something from the very start makes it clear that things are not right. Matt cordially offers him a drink, which Wesley turns down, Matt bringing him a beer anyone, “just in case.” Wesley introduces himself just has he has in his trial runs. But before he can ever ask about his potential sex partner, Matt excuses himself to change clothes.

     Left alone for a moment in the living room, Matt follows him down the hall to the bedroom, asking Matt to tell him about himself, a question that the other dismisses, “Do you really care? Let’s be honest, that’s not what you’re here for.”

     But Wesley insists he really does care.

   Finished with his change of a sweatshirt, Matt suggests he put on a movie, with Wesley excusing himself to use the bathroom where he swallows some mouthwash and washes up his face as if the cold water might bright bring him relief.

    Matt puts on what appears to be a murder mystery, turning to Wesley for a kiss, while the latter barely responds. On the second try, however, Wesley is more responsive, but as he goes to touch Matt’s cock, it is the ruddy muscle boy who pulls away, clearly not sure he wants to pursue the sex he has arranged for.

     When Wesley asks if he’s done something wrong, he answers no, it’s his fault, nonetheless still indicating his uneasiness. Wesley simply answers, “It’s not over yet,” referring presumably to the movie, not to their sexual evening.

   In fact, instinctually Wesley makes the right move, snuggling up to Matt, placing his head on his chest.

    Later, as the two lay in bed, perhaps after sex, Wesley rises, rustles through Matt’s dresser drawers and pulls something out which we cannot see.

    In the next frame he has lathered up the hair on his chest, ready to take a razor to it to render himself as hairless as Matt is. And we suddenly realize it has been sex that he has desired, but Matt’s body itself. He wants to be someone else, so uncomfortable is he in his own skin.

     He starts the hair removal slowly, but his pulls of the razor quickly become longer and sharper before they grow frenetic. Although the mirror image we see does not show us his full chest, we can only imagine that he is now severely lacerating himself, rasping away his skin; blood, we can imagine, must be pouring out from some of the cuts.

     We don’t see any blood, just the blood red sweatshirt he has stolen from Matt’s drawers which he has now put on as he walks down the street.

   The film has certainly been discreet if not the character himself, who in his acts has revealed a desperate longing to become someone who he is not. These are the signs of a killer—foretold perhaps in the image of a gun in the movie the two watched. We don’t know what has become of Matt, but we do now know that Wesley is a kind of quiet zombie, desperate to come alive in the form of someone else.

      I think this might be a fascinating double feature with another “nominally” gay movie titled Discreet, Travis Mathews’ feature film from 2017, which also ends in a death.

 

Los Angeles, November 3, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).