Mike Archibald | My Thoughts Exactly / 2022

two men in need of love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mike Archibald (screenwriter and director) My Thoughts Exactly / 2022 [18 minutes]

 

A voice begins this moving short film by speaking about his memories of his lover, Jim, obviously now dead, his dreams about him and their shared love of Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada.

    The movie then proceeds with what seems to be its primary narrative as Nav (Ishan Sandhu), a University of British Columbia graduate of East Indian heritage who is about to undergo his first day at what he hopes would be a temporary job at a company named Sales Solutions, which begins in the lobby waiting for a slow elevator to take him to the eighth floor. In Archibald’s caring work, even the Security Guard (Ranjit Samra) comes alive as a character, guessing accurately where Nav is heading. When the elevator arrives, the guard wishes him good luck, almost under his breath adding, “You’ll need it.”

    The interviewer, Lance (Nathaniel Vossen) is already on the phone mouthing a bit of subtle homophobia about a man with a pink shirt as Nav arrives. And even before they can begin, Lance, ready to test them out, gives Nav a new name, Steve, explaining that if they go with ethic names their numbers will “tank.”

     Typical of a man with his kind of unperceived racism, Lance insists that if they get to know him they’ll find he’s one of the least racist persons around; but we already seriously doubt that. Particularly since he’s convinced that everyone else is racist and that perhaps it might change in 15 to 20 years.

     The job consists of calling up customers, real and potential to convince them to renew their subscriptions, generally through assumptions. They don’t ask their customers to subscribe, they “assume” their readiness for an extension of their subscriptions: “I’m going to put you down for a six-month extension,” thus convincing their customers that they sales pitch is actually representative of their own desires, an old trick which this company has perfected.

    Nav at his job alternates with the sad figure behind the voice, Raymond (Robert L. Duncan) who at a loss in his now lonely world, imagines his choices for the day, writing his statements down and them setting the sheets afire over the urn of ashes sitting on his table, dropping the pieces of burning paper into the urn in a symbolic attempt to communicate with his beloved friend.

     Meanwhile Nav “nails” his very first call, Lance congratulating him on his “accent.”

     We watch Ray dress for his daily walk.

    Nav’s second customer is more problematic. She is a dying old woman named Jane, now, she jokingly adds through her heavy coughs, reduced to making conversation with a sales person on the phone. As he attempts to put her down for a six-month extension, she explains that it’s been a long hard day, in a long hard year, and a difficult life that’s almost over. She tells the young 24-year-old marketeer that he’s going to suffer, Nav interrupting her to explain that he has suffered, with a quick cinematic cut to Ray sitting on the bed alone, hands over his face. Jane suggests that perhaps Nav is suffering right now working on his job as a salesman.

     Suddenly we see Lance, behind Nav, closing down the conversation and demanding “Steve” take off his headset. Lance is furious that his salesman is having a “heart to heart” talk with a woman who clearly is not interested in a subscription. Lance wants to know why he didn’t immediately get off the phone. “I thought I had a winner on my hands, a winner.”

     Nav/Steve realizes immediately that any emotions he might feel for anyone or anything will have to be checked at the door in this job, and even though Lance is willing to give “Steve” another chance, Nav stands, puts down his headphones and heads out the door, declaring “I won’t do this.”

     “Turns out Steve has a strong mind of his own. So it’s goodbye, Steve. What are you gonna do now?”

     “I think I’m going to go for a stroll in the park,” Nav responds.

     As Nav returns to the lobby, he jokes to the Security Guard, “That’s it for me, is that a record?”

     The guard laughs, “Not quite kid.”

     Stanley Park, in case you haven’t guessed, is also a gay cruising spot. And Nav, it appears, is now a jobless, lonely, gay man. There among the joggers, the elderly odd cruisers, Nav meets Raymond, staring off into the distance.

     Seeing the man tear up, he asks if everything is all right, the man responding that he’s just having a little reminiscence.

     After just a few more niceties, Nav explains that he’s been through a difficult morning, and takes the hand of the slightly startled older man, Raymond, wondering if he might be interested in taking a nearby small path.

     Ray stares down the path, perhaps remembering his own times with Jim or just the fear of now suddenly meeting up with a young man so unexpectedly. He answers: “Maybe not. A lot of memories lying down this path.”

      “Good ones, I hope.”

      “Why, yes,” Ray replies. “Let’s just say I’d like to break new grass.”

      Nav chuckles at the idiom, as they hold hands and walk away on a “brief expedition.”

      “Is this new ground?” Nav asks. When Ray agrees, Nav takes out a piece of newspaper and spreads it across the ground, Ray asking is that for “his” use or his new friend’s, Nav replying, “Mine. Is that okay?” Obviously his intentions are to engage in fellatio.

       They gently kiss, relieving both of their painful tensions of the day. As they continue to kiss, we can see them pulling in the other, their need for love, for sharing, however momentarily, in a world that seems tense and lonely. They exchange names, something that rarely happens in such meet-ups, and in the quiet of the beautiful park they make love.

       This short work seems like a well-spring of maturity, clarity, and truth in a world of pouting, shouting, desperate young men, boys, and women. These two gentle men, brought by accident together on this day, realize that they have found what they are seeking, if only temporarily, in one another: some quiet moments in which another being displays their love for the other. That is the essence of such events, isn’t it?

 

Los Angeles, December 11, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).