David Brown | Rural Heat / 1997

a wilde coming out

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Brown (screenwriter and director) Rural Heat / 1997

 

The school is preparing for its annual theatrical productions of various kinds, including a presentation of a selection from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest. Various of the performers, directors, and school mistresses are gathered backstage as we hear a constant voice-over of announcements for the performances.

     Meanwhile, one of the boys, Gregory (John Matthews) is brought up, almost by the ruff his neck, by his mother to another of the thespians, Matthew (Brian Glanney) who is told in no uncertain terms to stay away from her son; “He’s told me all about you.”

     Matthew is more than a little startled by the fact his friend Gregory had told his parents all about their gay relationship. Gregory suggests they would have found out in any event and that it’s better this way. He also suggests that Matthew is going to have to tell “her,” since Gregory’s mother is also going to tell “her” as well. Whether “her” refers to his apparent “girlfriend” Bernadette—who pulls in Matthew demanding he help her with her lines—or his mother—who is one of the multiple directors of this affair—is uncertain. In any event, Gregory soon spots Matthew and Bernadette (Mia Gallagher) kissing. It doesn’t help for Matthew to explain that it was her doing, not his. Even his admitting to Gregory that he loves him doesn’t seem to help.

     And meanwhile, Gregory must soon go on as Algernon Moncrieff in the Wilde play, while the John Worthing character, to be performed by Christopher (Darren Stallard), has just been found drunk in the school bathroom; since Matthew knows the lines, he is asked to substitute.

     Chaos is let loose upon the stage in the form of magic tricks, sword-swallowing, and backstage high jinks. But soon the Wilde scene begins, with Jack having to admit that he believes Algernon to be untrustworthy. But suddenly he begins to change the lines, admitting that “We share the unspeakable vice of the Greek.” The backstage prompter is most confused, the schoolmistress becoming quite distraught with the line change, although anyone who has ever seen the play realizes that if Wilde could, he might have written just such a line into that work.

    Matthew stares into the space of the audience, announcing, “We are lovers.” He steps off stage to announce to his mother that he is in love with Gregory, she replying “I know. Go on with the show.” The schoolmistress attempts to close down the show, demanding the curtain be dropped. But Matthew’s mother insists the “show must go on!” And it is too late by this point, anyway, to hide the matter since Matthew and Gregory are almost in each other’s arms.

     In 1996, the year previous to this short film, Hettie Macdonald’s Beautiful Thing had demonstrated two boys coming out without the full public announcement of this work, and by the next year, British director Simon Shore’s Get Real and American director David Moreton’s Edge of Seventeen would establish the basic format of the genre as a feature film that I’ve described as the “Coming Out” movie, version B. But this short Irish work has to be described as the first film to represent that genre’s essentials: the admission to each other of their gay love, a temporary or permanent break in their relationship due to the unreadiness of one of the lovers, and the final public announcement of gay sexuality, accepted or rejected by parents and society in general.

     The quality of the DVD I saw was far from excellent and, as so very may amateur productions, the sound along with the heavy Irish accents create problems for Brown’s film school project, particularly for the American ear. Let us hope that this important 13-minute work will soon be restored and brought into a better format with subtitles.

 

Los Angeles, July 10, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).