Gus Black | Why Did You Invite Me to Your Wedding? / 2025

tears at a wedding

by Douglas Messerli

 

Kevin Atwater (screenwriter), Gus Black (director) Why Did You Invite Me to Your Wedding? / 2025 [4 minutes]

 

This short, most visual work, is based on the guitar song composed by Black, performed by Kevin Atwater.

    It is basically a poorly-acted teen tear jerker wherein Kevin has returned “home,” presumably for a wedding party he did not want to attend since the groom is a past lover. We see him, tearfully enduring what appears to be the party, before we flash back apparently to his room, his memories of joyful times with his love, and his casual invitation to the wedding party.

    His first reply, after a few moments of thought, is yes, he’d love to attend, but after a few moments of further memories the pain becomes just too much to bear, and he quickly deletes the invitation. I guest we are to believe that he changed his mind again, and did finally attend, unless the first scene is simply another incidental—and accordingly quite confusing incident that shows his difficulty in attending any party.

    But this film, despite all good intentions and the melancholic guitar solo that accompanies it, is not deeply imaginative filmmaking. And in the end, we have to wonder why we were invited to this sad non-event, yet another incident of a gay boy being unable to admit to himself his sexuality and, accordingly, probably causing later havoc in the life of his wife and any children that may have come our of his attempt to assert his heterosexuality.

     In this case, however, we no absolutely nothing about the “other.” Perhaps he was bisexual, or their relationship was not actually what Atwater imagines it was. Or maybe the boy’s former lover just realized, in the end, that he was straight. The deep feelings that the musician experiences are difficult to share without being presented with a true dramatic story instead of quick images that seem to be clipped out of a gay film catalogue.

    This is not example of profound LGBT filmmaking, nor even a clever music video, although it certainly helps to give meaning to the music. As for the questions the song poses, I think there might be only one reason why a man about to enter into a heterosexual marriage might wish his former gay lover to be there: to prove to lover and obviously to himself that he is now absolutely straight, and what happened in the past as a youthful experiment. I wish him good luck with that!

 

Los Angeles, March 10, 2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2026).