Hoang A. Duong | Tom Clay Jesus / 2001

the man that got away

by Douglas Messerli

 

Hoang A. Duong (screenwriter and director) Tom Clay Jesus / 2001 [17 minutes]

 

Tom (Scott Saffer), a good-looking gay man brings home Clay (David Ojalvo) for a night of sex. The two truly enjoy each other, and we recognize them almost immediately as a perfect couple.

    But this is still a long 13 years away from when gays in the US could get married, and accordingly, despite AIDS, there was still no strong cultural pull in the gay community to couple up, even though Clay leaves Tom his telephone number with the hope he might call him with the hope that a fuller relationship could develop.

     A month goes by, however, without a call. When they meet up in a bar again, Tom has already committed himself to go home with another man (Charles Kaiser), yet seeing Clay he goes over to him, hugs him, flirts for a few minutes, and orders up a round of drinks, before kissing him goodbye, Clay reminding him that he still has his number to call him.

     When Tom’s new pick-up asks who he had greeted at the bar, Tom replies “a friend.”

     Clay meanwhile often appears to sit home alone nights awaiting Tom’s call. The only call we observe him receiving, however, is from his mother concerning his father’s failing health.

      Tom, we can imagine perpetuates his life of pick-ups, although he too, we perceive, remembers the smooth skin of Clay, recalls they raucous time in bed together.

       Clay ages a bit from his youthful cuteness, becomes somewhat lankier, and grows a beard. Still no call from Tom.

      One day while taking his clothes to a local laundromat, he spots Tom inside. He almost turns around, fearful of encountering him again after all these weeks. But his desire is still potent, and he enters without greeting his former lover.

       Tom appears not even to recognize him, but is still quickly attracted, introducing himself to whom he perceives as a stranger. Clay, a bit flabbergasted, looks up at the wood-paneled wall, where hangs a portrait of Christ, as he turns his eyes back to Tom, naming himself Jesús. Tom invites him home.

       There Clay’s discovers near Tom’s computer the blue slip of paper on which has so long ago written his name and number. When he asks who Clay is, Tom once more replies that he is a “good friend.”

       The two begin their foreplay, Tom clearly intrigued now by finding himself with a man he believes is a Latin lover, responding to Jesús’s further query about his “friend” that he, Jesús, is a better lover than Clay.

       As they get into bed, Tom tops Clay, asking what he prefers sexually. Clay pauses before answering “I want to go home.”

         A bit taken aback, Tom suggests that he too has other work to do. Clay stands and quickly leaves.

       We see both men pacing back and forth in their one-room apartments, both troubled by the recent situation for different reasons, Tom clearly surprised by the rejection and Clay/Jesús torn by the decision he has made to break with his phantom lover.

         Tom takes up the blue slip of paper and calls Tom’s number. Tom nervously answers, somewhat delighted that Tom has finally chosen to call. But when Tom speaks, he tells him simply that he has a wrong number.

          A very smart commentator on the IMDb site, with the moniker of Atlantis2006, likens it to French psychoanalyst/psychiatrist Jacques Lacan’s description of “phantasmatic desire”:

 

“As Jacques Lacan explains in Ecrits, the nature of the object of desire relies deeply on a most effective assertion: one's greatest desire is to be the object of desire of the other. In "Tom Clay Jesus", the lives of Tom and Clay get seemingly interwoven at first. There is a promise, a longing for an ideal that would henceforth consolidate a meaningful relationship. But as one could guess, ideals are not an easy item to come by, whether it is an abstract ideal or the ideal man.

     …Desire is mediated by this phantasmatic distortion that forces Tom to overlook his newfound partner and makes him to rapidly feel attraction towards Jesus, a bearded stranger he meets two months after the first scene.

     When Tom fails to see beyond his phantasmatic obsession he disqualifies Clay as an option. But when Clay can relinquish this failed status, and in fact has the power to personify the very phantasm Tom so eagerly awaits, he also sees Tom under a new light. Perhaps then, the shifting of what Lacan denominates "object a" in regards to desire, eliminates the possibilities of a steady relationship.”

 

       He’s probably right in his analysis, but you don’t need Lacan to explain that when you keep overlooking the one you really love and, finally, can’t even recognize him when he offers himself up to you in a slightly different manifestation, then it’s time for the other to call the whole thing off! As sad as it is, Clay better start looking for another man to replace his former heartthrob. And if Tom is smart, which he clearly isn’t, he should rethink his life of one-night stands. As Tom ages, Jesús won’t be the only one who turns him away.  

 

Los Angeles, November 3, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).

 

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).