VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Trick (R, 1999)
QQQ1/2
Writer/Director: Jim Fall
Jim Fall's inescapably likable Trick is the kind of film gay audiences have been waiting for. It's sexy without being raunchy. It's romantic without being mushy. It's campy without being overly stereotypical. And most important, it's unapologetically gay, without being inaccessible to straight audiences. As Scott Thompson's flamboyant Buddy Cole said on Kids in the Hall, "It's the porridge Goldilocks chose."
After making its Texas debut at the first Fort Worth Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, this amusing love story went on to do decent business with gay and straight audiences around the country, and it's easy to see why. The story is centered on two would-be lovers who make an evening of trying to find someplace to be intimate. First we meet Gabriel (Christian Campbell, Neve's brother), a young, shy, frustrated musical writer who looks like a less gawky Ronnie Howard circa American Graffiti.
While trolling one of the local gay watering holes, he exchanges stares with Mark (John Paul Pitoc), a gorgeous go-go boy whose attentiveness he dismisses until a chance encounter later on the subway. One thing - as it's said - leads to another and the two end up searching in vain for a venue to get down and dirty, but fate throws up roadblocks at every turn.
Gabriel's straight roommate has dibs on their apartment for the evening; his best friend (Tori Spelling), a self-absorbed, co-dependent actress, corners them from time to time; his queeny show-tune-singing buddy offers his digs only to renege after making up with his ex. And Mark's vicious drag queen acquaintance Miss Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp) has a few poisonous words for Gabriel about his potential "trick."
With its somewhat randy premise, Trick could have devolved into explicit crassness, but instead it becomes more sweet and poignant than you might expect. Both leads are as charming as they are attractive, and it's their convincing on-screen chemistry that buoys the film through the occasionally cutesy swells. Spelling and Leupp manage to pull some amusing moments out of their potentially caricatured portrayals, and Dallas' Lorri Bagley scores major laughs as the roommate's immodest French girlfriend who offers the couple a little free psychological advice. Let's hope we don't have to wait long for another treat like Trick.
It's rated R for strong language, sexual content and nudity.