Ari Itkin and Devon Diffenderfer | Love You Tyler / 2019

the tease

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ari Itkin and Devon Diffenderfer (screenwriters and directors) Love You Tyler / 2019 [9 minutes]

 

Devon Diffenderfer and Ari Itkin’s short 9-minute movie Love You Tyler is what you would have to describe as a tease.

      Luke (Diffenderfer) and Tyler (Ryan Pater) are roommates of two years, and both of the attractive young men appear to be interested in the other. Yet something is missing, and we see Luke in the first scene attempting to get up the courage to tell Tyler something.

      He finds Tyler packing up to take a weekend hiking trip—with other friends, and without him, which perhaps is behind his sudden urge to tell him his secret. He even wonders aloud why he wasn’t invited, immediately claiming his question was just a joke. But we sense it isn’t a joke and that all of his unexpectedly odd comments have some deeper significance.     

     When he finally gets up the courage, he tells Tyler that he has a new girlfriend who he’s known for only two weeks. Coincidentally her name is also Tyler, and like his male roommate works as a part time bartender.

       Even stranger, Luke insists that he’s soon going to ask her to marry him—yes, after only two weeks—and he’d like to practice is marriage proposal with Tyler. Beginning with the words “I love you Tyler,” he gets to his knees, talks about the two years of a roller coaster ride of a relationship—Tyler interrupts him to wonder about the “two years,” about which Luke apologizes as yet another “mistake”—finally saying “will you marry me?”—repeating the phrase over three more times in different intonations—and when Tyler finally utters “yes,” slips a ring on his finger (a gold band that might be used at a gay wedding as well as a heterosexual wedding proposal).

    It certainly sounds to the outsider audience, given the similarity of names and jobs, like Luke is really proposing to Tyler, and his roommate interprets it in the same manner, particularly when Luke thanks him for his help with a kiss on the lips. Tyler seems offended, almost disgusted by the kiss, almost as if he were a bit homophobic; and worse he proceeds to abuse Luke by arguing that there is obviously no girlfriend and he will never have a girlfriend because “you’re you,” suggesting that this is only one of many such stupid routines Luke has performed over time.

      Luke storms off to his bedroom, slamming the door. And a few minutes later, Tyler, obviously regretting his outburst, gently knocks.

      Opening it almost immediately, Luke plants another kiss on his lips, further outraging Tyler, Luke backing immediately away insisting that he had simply misread the situation, apologizing for his behavior and promising that it won’t happen again.

      We are now confused. Didn’t he get the message the first time around that Tyler was straight or least was not interested in a relationship with him, a possibility that Tyler himself now brings up with Luke.

      But the story quickly shifts yet again when Tyler suggests that Luke simply admit that he’s got the hots for him, that he’s gay and wants a relationship. The two at this point are standing face to face, and Tyler suddenly kisses him hard on the lips, backs off and repeats it seriously.

    Luke pauses, and says, “I can’t” as if the earlier dismissal of his “mock” proposal might have soured him on the possibility of their relationship.

      Tyler walks out, furious with the apparent continuation of the game. But as he leaves Tyler’s cellphone rings. He doesn’t answer. And it rings again, he finally taking it, answering, “Hi Babe.”

      Writer and actor Diffenderfer himself describes his intentions to confuse the viewer: “Love You Tyler is a queer friendly romantic comedy of sorts. Awkward and confusing and at times messy in its approach, that to me is how love can be.

     I wrote the short to give the audience enough twists to be kept off balance and leave them in the end to wonder. Regardless of what I Intended and know for myself to be true of the story it is up to the audience to make their own conclusions and be left hopefully wanting more in the end, with a laugh or two along the way.”

 

     His audience will obviously find many ways to read this, including the obvious conclusion, that he truly does have a girlfriend named Tyler who is amazing also a school teacher. But I can’t believe that ending for one moment.

     In hindsight, I now see Tyler’s disdain and seeming rejection of Luke’s first kiss is not in response to the kiss but to the play-acting that he just put him through. It’s clear that both men are sexually interested in the other, but it’s also evident that Tyler can’t fully come out with the truth, to honestly express his love for his roommate, and that miffs Tyler, not the quick kiss. If Luke has been asking him to marry him, why still play a game? And if that is his way of expressing his feelings, then perhaps he isn’t ready for a gay relationship being still far too conflicted about his desire for the same gender.

      Accordingly, I interpret Luke’s statement, “I can’t” has another restatement of his inability to come out. The problem is just as Tyler has described; he can’t admit to himself that he loves another man. Luke is actually “the tease.”

      When the phone rings so immediately after, I see it as being Tyler calling him yet again, Luke returning to a kind of game-playing which is the only way he can express his homosexual love, “Hi Babe.”

     But that’s only my reading. Each viewer will surely have their own way of perceiving the events of this slightly absurdist comedy.

 

Los Angeles, July 13, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).