I am still figuring out what to make of this film. It is not a great movie, or a successful one, but there are certain passages I still can't get out of my mind, several days after seeing it.
As several have pointed out, this film begins with a note from first-time director Richard Natale asking indulgence for the challenges facing low-budget, inexperienced filmmakers--and we brace, expecting the worst. The film begins at a yard sale where two gay men try to purchase the titular green plaid shirt--the kind of Meet-Cute setup beloved by 1930s movies. Yet nothing that follows feels phony or sentimental (as a character points out, there's a difference between being sentimental and having sentiment). The scenes detailing the two men's initial encounters feel as if they were written from observation and are naturally and charmingly played by Gregory Phelan and Kevin Spirtas (who has one of those irresistible, hopeful half-smiles that would make you forgive any number of bad decisions, plenty of which are to come.) And the intimate scenes are sensual, yet awkward, in a way they often are in life. (The first is interrupted by a playful argument over choice of background music.) We can believe in their affair, because of the private, slightly icky lover's vocabulary they develop (that irritates their friends, but not us) and the protective way they wrap themselves in each other's arms.
Of course, life intervenes, and the movie gets in trouble. The actors have built up so much good will that we don't hate them when their characters make bad decisions and get into horrible messes. But the back-and-forth chronology becomes very difficult to follow, and several plot revelations seem to come from nowhere (like a sudden suicide.) And the badly recorded sound is a definite hindrance. Yet I was held until the poetic, perfect finish, and I resent those who casually dismiss this as "another AIDS film". This movie treats AIDS as a fact, not in the exploitative style of Lifetime TV.
As several have pointed out, this film begins with a note from first-time director Richard Natale asking indulgence for the challenges facing low-budget, inexperienced filmmakers--and we brace, expecting the worst. The film begins at a yard sale where two gay men try to purchase the titular green plaid shirt--the kind of Meet-Cute setup beloved by 1930s movies. Yet nothing that follows feels phony or sentimental (as a character points out, there's a difference between being sentimental and having sentiment). The scenes detailing the two men's initial encounters feel as if they were written from observation and are naturally and charmingly played by Gregory Phelan and Kevin Spirtas (who has one of those irresistible, hopeful half-smiles that would make you forgive any number of bad decisions, plenty of which are to come.) And the intimate scenes are sensual, yet awkward, in a way they often are in life. (The first is interrupted by a playful argument over choice of background music.) We can believe in their affair, because of the private, slightly icky lover's vocabulary they develop (that irritates their friends, but not us) and the protective way they wrap themselves in each other's arms.
Of course, life intervenes, and the movie gets in trouble. The actors have built up so much good will that we don't hate them when their characters make bad decisions and get into horrible messes. But the back-and-forth chronology becomes very difficult to follow, and several plot revelations seem to come from nowhere (like a sudden suicide.) And the badly recorded sound is a definite hindrance. Yet I was held until the poetic, perfect finish, and I resent those who casually dismiss this as "another AIDS film". This movie treats AIDS as a fact, not in the exploitative style of Lifetime TV.