The holiday season can be an ambivalent time for LGBT people, especially for those with little connection to their biological families. "They say that gay men choose their own families. That's never more evident than during the holidays," begins the voiceover narration at the start of Shared Rooms, the new romantic comedy released on DVD by Wolfe Videos just in time for Christmas. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a gay Christmas Carol all our own? Well, Shared Rooms is not it. One risks being called a Scrooge for saying Humbug to what is obviously meant to be warm, feel-good entertainment, modeled after the British film Love Actually, with similar intertwining, holiday-themed storylines.
Screenwriter Laslo (Christopher Grant Pearson) and accountant husband Cal (Alec Manley Wilson) are a childless gay couple lamenting all their friends adopting or siring children through surrogates, "giving up gay dates for play dates." They joke all they want for Christmas is a houseboy. Then Zeke (Ryan Weldon), Cal's gay nephew, outed and forsaken by his parents, turns up on their doorstep. Suddenly they are faced with a "child" of their own, and must decide if they want to be parents.
After a stint in rehab for drinking, painter-photographer Sid (Justin Xavier), feeling lonely on Christmas without family, finds a hookup, Gray (Alexander Neil Miller), on the Manhandler App. They spend the film mostly naked (both avid nudists), having hot sex, with conversational interludes on art, literature, God, and quantum physics. Is there enough to hold these two very different men together?
Julian (Daniel Lipshutz) has been secretly renting out his flatmate Dylan's (Robert Werner) room on LGBTQ BnB.com for money and easy sex. Dylan travels nine months out of the year for business, secretly has a crush on Julian, but is scared to reveal his true feelings. He returns early from traveling to discover Julian has rented his room out to mysterious stranger Frank (David Vaughn), looking for his kidnapped brother. He is forced to share a bed with Julian. They both lie naked next to each other. Are the romantic sparks mutual or unrequited?
These interlocking stories climax at a mutual friend's New Year's party, and the relationships among the characters are revealed. Director Rob Williams' banal scriptwriting, stiff dialogue, inane sexual innuendo, depthless characters, and amateurish acting defeat any possibility of a Christmas miracle. The contrived ending is egregious. Williams' earlier holiday effort Make the Yuletide Gay (2009) seems like Citizen Kane compared to Shared Rooms . With its sympathetic portrayal of a rejected gay teenager, Shared Rooms tries to say something about what real family means. So kudos for good intentions (and a 75-minute runtime), but we all know where they pave the way.