(s)+Diamonds=gay romantic comedy Partner(s), kinda
With all of my (insert pretentious swagger) accumulated movie knowledge, you’d think I start this blogg with something slightly more…more…well, no easy way to say this without offending Mr. Dave Diamond (the director of this film), well, actually, with a name like Dave Diamond how hard is it to offend, come on, man; meaningful. The film is Partner(s) 2005 written and directed by Mr. Dave Diamond. Somewhere along the line, a marketing intern mustered up enough guts to stand in a boardroom brainstorming session to say “you know what will make this movie cool and unique? Put parenthesis “s” at the end of Partner. That would really make it stand out.” So the wife enjoys renting movies and not watching it, love it, heavy weight champion of DVD rental neglect. I, for one, hate to waste a rental, everything she brings home from Hollywood video or her Chinese rental place (except for the Japanese and HK dramas) I watch completely, beginning to end, even if it’s bad, complaining all the way from beginning to end, I watch. So, meat and potatoes shall we, a young lawyer exploits office politics and homosexual stereotypes to win control over a high profile case (involving a gay man suing a company for firing him because he’s gay) in which if he wins, will lock his chances of making partner of the firm. Without spending more time than I need to explain the intricacies of Partner(s), let me just give you my feeling on an emotional response to this film rather than an academic assessment, which would not be fair to this effort to show the gay lifestyle in reference to heterosexual lifestyles, and how funny the contrast can be. Not very I’m afraid. Partner(s) falls into the pigeon hole of similar gay movies of the 90s (Jeffery, Love, Valor, Compassion!, Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, Percella Queen of the Desert, and I’ll mention To Wong Foo Thanks for everything… just for the sake of mentioning, because I believe this movie is far from what the gay or transsexual community is trying accomplish), trying to be unisex while dispelling sexual stereotypes and prejudices, but in the end, it highlights the differences rather than presenting a case of similarities. Add to the fact that Mr. Diamond seems a bit uncomfortable with the hetero scenes, almost disgusted with the act itself. So the love between the two main characters seems a bit labored and dispassionate, lacking in chemistry. However, surprisingly well acted; the main characters as well as some of the supporting actors are quite good in their roles, the tragedy is they are not given anything decent to chew on, and most of the office characters are one cliché after another (I’ll spare the details) acting in roles that seems to be nothing more than an extended episode of Three’s a Company. And the tragedies keep flowing, Saul Rubinek and Michael Ian Black, two good actors that I can only assume owe somebody a favor. One thing Mr. Diamond is good at is “establishing shots.” Man is he good at that, establishing shots everywhere; however, I have no freaking idea what city this movie is supposed to be in. Elevated train, palm trees, LA sunsets, Canadian skyline? And no, I will allow Mr. Diamond the argument that it’s universal, it can be in any city, (The Matrix can be in any city, Partner(s) cannot) then why the obvious shot of downtown LA? Lastly, there is this long and unexpected post script at the end of the movie telling us what happened to all of these mildly bland characters after the this initial story ends, you mean it continues?! It was surreal to say the least, 1) I don’t really care enough about these people to know what becomes of them, including the supporting cast, even some of the extras got a post script, I’m not kidding 2) the movie is exactly the same with or without the PS, only with the PS will take longer before you finally hit the stop button on the DVD player. My recommendation? Get your hands on a Chow Yun Fat HK flick call The Eight Happiness directed by Johnny To, Chow Yun Fat gives an amazing performance for such a small movie as a womanizer that falls in love with a women but has to pretend he’s gay to get close to her and win her affection. Chow Yun Fat acts gay amazingly well to say the least. In the end, the answer lies in Asia cinema, always the case.
Labels: Partner(s)
