coming to an agreement
by
Douglas Messerli
Guy
Olivieri (screenplay), Neil Fennell (director) I Don't Believe in That /
2015 [10 minutes]
Derrick, raised Catholic has become not only someone who disbelieves in
all things spiritual that cannot be rationally explained by science, but is
frankly cynical also about many so-called moral values. Somehow, despite his
insistence on rationality, he does seem to believe in the death penalty, and doesn’t
even seem to mind the notion of gas chambers. His lover, on the other hand, has
a vague notion of something larger than himself, and finds it comforting to
imagine a great being taking of us. Keith, moreover, finds the very idea of a man
taking another man’s life as horrific and barbaric.
When Keith asks Derrick what would happen
if he were suddenly to see a ghost come out of the toilet, Derrick argues he
would call an ambulance and check himself into a mental hospital for schizophrenia.
But “marriage” is something that Keith
doesn’t believe in. All the straight and gay couples he knows who are married
are in unhappy relationships or have broken up. He also loves Derrick, he
admits, but he cannot say that in the future things might change, and do so
would be a lie.
So, it seems, this “perfect” couple have
directly opposed views on nearly everything; not, I might suggest, a good basis
for a long term relationship especially when it might come to a split in
political views, which seems inevitable given Derrick’s cynical attitudes
compared with Keith’s various moral commitments.
As the two lie in bed later than night,
still arguing and commiserating over their lack of agreement, a toilet ghost
does did appear, one that both them can see, suggesting it is not a single
delusion. The ghost intends to kill the couple until he realizes that he is
been asked to murder a straight couple, and that these two men a gay. “My bad,”
he admits, realizing that he has visited the wrong apartment.
The minute the ghost has gone back into
their boudoir, Derrick and Keith agree immediately to marriage—in a Catholic
Cathedral moreover.
As a non-believer with a great deal of
moral commitment, I can’t quite find either of these figures very compatible,
and certainly don’t find the trick of a bathroom ghost as being a very clever
ruse to bring them together. It’s clear that writer Guy Olivieri doesn’t have
much respect for either of his character’s point-of-view and that everything is
simply a comedic device.
Finally, there doesn’t seem to be much of
anything to make this a particularly gay movie, expect that the two men in the
bed and living with one another are of the same sex. They might equally have
been that straight couple in the other apartment to where the ghost escaped to
murder his prey. Am I the only one who doesn’t find this film very funny?
Los
Angeles, July 7, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2026).
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