As far as the middling state of gay cinema goes, Tennyson Bradwell's debut feature DORIAN BLUES is better than most. But it is also indicative of the problems that face gay filmmakers in the new millennium, sputtering in fits and starts in a desperate, panicked attempt to find relevance and originality. With television increasingly exploring gay lives with nuance and complexity, gay audiences are no longer dependent upon cinema or theatre as the prime sources of reflection and identity exploration. As such, the basic dramatic staples of decades past -- coming out, self-acceptance, AIDS -- are too widely drawn to appeal to a community dealing with the complexities of marriage equality, intergenderism, and international scope. The $64,000 Question: what do we need independent gay cinema for anymore? How many white-suburban-boy-coming-out films do we really need, especially when so many other queer stories are going untold? And how can gay cinema regain its immediacy and relevance...to gays and non-gays alike?

DORIAN BLUES is an interesting case study, both in its strengths and its weaknesses. Wittily written and well acted, its execution suffers mightily under the indignity of low production values. Characters are richly drawn, but are thrust into stereotypical situations (unaccepting fathers, coming out, and first heartbreaks). Almost completely devoid of same-sex affection (not even one hand-holding), it argues for the power of romantic sensibilities without having any actual romance to support Dorian's personal thesis. As a piece of cinema, it is an undeniably gay film intended for a gay audience -- it won audience awards at L.A. OutFest, Cinequest, and the Philly Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, among others -- but it ultimately has little insight into the gay experience it chronicles. News flash: growing up gay is rough. Who did not know this already?

Despite its dismaying lack of innovation, however, DORIAN BLUES is not a complete waste of time. The snappy screenplay has more one-liners than All About Eve, and the performances (especially those of Dorian, played by What I Like About You's Michael McMillian, and his brother Nicky, portrayed by Lea Coco) have a welcome subtlety and verve. Simply taken as a character study, Dorian is a delicious tangle of conflicting and contradictory impulses; watching him untangle himself from the psychological weight of his father (Steven C. Fletcher) is the major pleasure of the film.

But when wading in the ocean of coming out stories, comparisons are inevitable, and the path to gay self-acceptance is well trodden ground. (A quickly-drawn list of better efforts would include Torch Song Trilogy, Big River, Trevor, Wonderland, and In and Out.) Ultimately, the question of DORIAN BLUES isn't one of entertainment value, which it has in scrappy, low-budget spades. The real issue, for those of us who take the future of gay cinema seriously, is whether this film has anything new to add to the cultural discourse. DORIAN BLUES lacks that spark of imagination that would propel it into the rarefied air occupied by the gay-themed films of Pedro Almodovar, John Greyson, Gregg Araki, or Rodney Evans. It is an inoffensive, adequate comedy that offers little joys to those who ask little of it. It is better than mediocre, but worse than that as well...it lacks the distinctiveness and clarity that has become all too necessary in this genre.

-- Gabriel Shanks