Simon Anderson | Morning Is Broken / 2015

i don’t want to be this way

by Douglas Messerli

 

Simon Anderson (screenwriter and director) Morning Is Broken / 2015 [11 minutes]

 

The most common homophobia does not emanate from others but from the self for those who have somehow by their parents, by the society in which they live, or through the attitudes of peers and friends been convinced that being homosexual is not only wrong but that having such desires is untenable, representative of the worst imaginable behavior. Feeling love for other men, for example, is not simply seen an issue of having desires that do not represent the majority of human beings, but is perceived as a kind of disease against which one should be inoculated or, if it has progressed, cured.

     There is no end to the way normative heterosexual society has made clear that any LGBTQ behavior is abnormal and should be controlled, or worse, even the expression of such feelings should be censored by the society and self, but even an individual with no religious feelings or family pressures to conform to heterosexual norms, may have a strong sense of regret for his or her inability to live out the societal pattern of love, marriage, and children—even while realizing that those possibilities are now available for many LGBTQ individuals as well.

     We don’t know why the handsome young medical student Sam (Matthew Tennyson) came to be so confused by his own inner feelings. But as Simon Anderson’s beautifully filmed work begins we quickly become aware that we are witnessing that very last moments of a wedding celebration at a British county house in which Sam’s older brother Roland (Jack Hawkins) has just married Rose (Elisabeth Hopper), evidently a large celebratory event after which only Roland’s neighbor Nick (Nigel Allen) and his brother Sam remain, still drinking as they probably have been throughout most post-wedding celebration, Nick chugging on a beer, while Sam sips on his glass of expensive scotch.     

     For a few moments Roland joins them before finally being called inside by his bride, leaving the last two guests by themselves. Roland has introduced Nick to Sam, describing him as someone who buys vintage cars, refinishes the autos, and sells them at high prices. The young Sam clearly also loves, according to his brother, all things vintage.

      The two accordingly have something to talk about, but Sam is clearly very shy, Nick moving closer to him so that they might talk, with Sam jokingly declaring that the seat next to him is taken—a clue perhaps to his own fear of bodily contact.

     They talk about meaningless things, Sam suggesting Nick try a bit of his scotch, and Nick wheedling the information from Sam that he is studying medicine. Sam disparages the whole wedding affair, scoffing at the event, and Nick suggests he has something to show him, his newest acquisition, a beautiful vintage automobile.

      Asking him if he’d like to try out a ride, Nick takes him to his own nearby home, letting him wander the rustic farm site while he goes to fetch a couple of more beers.

        The countryside is beautiful and almost by instinct Sam wanders to a nearby stream where a boat is moored. Joining him, Nick wonders if he might want to take it out for a bit, and Sam readily agrees, Nick steadying him as they settle into the small rowboat.

        Nick rows a ways out, and Sam wonders if he might give it a try, Nick, putting his hands over Sam’s, attempting to explain that one rows toward oneself, dropping the oars ahead before pulling back toward the body.

        Suddenly in the midst of the lesson, Sam leans slightly forward and kisses Nick on the lips, Nick immediately responding by leaning fully forward and planting a deep kiss on Sam’s lips in return. But at the very same moment, Sam pulls back, shouting for him to stop.

        Nick quickly pulls away, but Sam continues in his protestations, begging him to not touch him and to bring in the boat. Flummoxed by Sam’s behavior and not having the oars in his hand, Nick simply tries to reassure him that he had simply made a mistake, but the young boy grows even more distraught, finally jumping into the water, swimming the few feet to the dock and running away down a country lane.

       Nick brings the boat in and chases after.

       Briefly catching his breath, Sam continues, clearly not even knowing to where he’s head.

If there was ever any truth to what early psychologists described as male hysteria, Sam is an example of it, unable to even control his emotional response.

     Nick finally catches up, grabs him and pulls him to the ground, attempting to reassure him that nothing has happened and nothing else will. As he falls, Sam whimpers out the words, “I don’t want to be this way,” itself an enigmatic statement since we do not know if the boy is suggesting that he doesn’t want to feel his homosexual attractions or that he doesn’t want to have the uncontrollable reaction that he has just undergone. Perhaps it is both.

       In any event, after pausing for few moments, Nick asks if Sam’s okay and suggests he drive him back to his brother’s. The last words of the film are Nick’s: “Nothing has happened here. Okay.” Nick begins to walk back to the car, as Sam looks back, seemingly ashamed for his behavior but also truly terrified—with the kind of terror I meant in using that word in this essay’s first paragraphs—by the truth of his own feelings.

        This 11 minute movie, given its lush cinematography by Crain Dean Devine of the stunning English landscape, cries out for further development. The leads are beautiful and would make a perfect gay couple. But this is not a movie about what might be in the future. This work is grounded thoroughly in the personal horror of Sam’s present, at a time when perhaps Sam is reaching an age that such behavior, instead of representing the difficulties of a young man trying to come to terms with his identity, hints that it is not the morning that is “broken,” as the title suggests, but the man himself who has become a broken vessel who will soon find himself unable to be mended.

      This film seems to argue that there will always be some who cannot and will not participate in the awakening of sexuality. Some gay figures such as the beautifully sculpted athlete John Dixon beloved by Get Real’s hero Steven Carter, will never be brave enough to accept their differences from others. Sam may also be just such a disappearing figure, lost in a landscape because he has no way of accepting his own existence in place.

       All that we can hope is that the absurdity of this event might make him further ponder his fears and help him to recognize that he will never be like his brother with a new bride calling him into the marriage bed, but that the romance of the moment—two beautiful men leaning toward each other in a rowboat to explore each other with a kiss—can be just as fulfilling.

 

Los Angeles, January 3, 2022

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2022).