The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival's last four days offer a string of intense dramas, mostly focused on family life, both traditional and the new-fashioned LGBTQ kind.
Spa Night Korean American filmmaker Andrew Ahn plants his good-little-boy protagonist David (Joe Seo, in a Sundance Special Grand Jury Award performance) into the bowels of his family's rundown Los Angeles bathhouse. David quickly discovers that this very old-fashioned business has become a de facto late-night same-sex make-out club. Ahn combines a sexy premise with steamy interiors that devotees of the steam-bath culture will savor. (Castro, 6/23)
Front Cover Ray Yeung, director of the 2008 London-based Asian sex comedy Cut-Sleeve Boys, returns with a flashy Manhattan-based peek at a Chinese American dude's ascent up the ladder of the Gotham-based fashion business. Ryan (Jake Choi) is none-too-happy when his female editor withholds a long-awaited cover story and instead assigns him to report on an ego-inflated cute Chinese fashion model. From the get-go, Ryan and Ning (James Chen) clash over cultural effluvia. While his Chinese parents are happy he's not chasing after another white boy, Ryan is perplexed about what he should do with an attitude-flaunting foreigner. Combining a hip insider's take on fashionistas with a two-worlds-collide, cute-boys implosion, Front Cover is as current and entertaining as tomorrow's headlines. (Castro, 6/25)
Jonathan This absorbing father/son tale from German director Piotr Lewandowski kicks off with a dying man, Burghardt (Andre Hennicke), achieving a painful deathbed coming out. Looking after his father is 23-year-old Jonathan (newcomer Jannis Niewohner), whose task is lightened after he falls in love with his dad's young nurse, Anka (Julia Koschitz). The pivotal moment of the story arrives in the person of an old friend of his dad's, providing Jonathan with a disconcerting view of his family's long-kept secrets. (Castro, 6/26)
Looking The closing-night festival slot is devoted to a film whose characters many of us will greet like old friends. I can still remember the excitement a few summers ago when British director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years) brought his cameras and hunky cast into the Castro to tell the story of three aging but still handsome gay guys in search of steady love and job relationships. The youngest of the trio, Patrick Murray, brings immediate appeal as played by Jonathan Groff. HBO cable fans may recall Groff as the cute queer lad trapped in Oregon apple country in COG (Child of God), a fairy tale based on a David Sedaris story.
In this 85-minute "final episode," Patrick comes back to the hood for the wedding of his furry-bear buddy Eddie (Daniel Franzese). Patrick looks forward to seeing his old restaurant-owning friend Dom Basaluzzo (Murray Bartlett), along with his wisecracking soulmate Doris (Lauren Weedman).
Jonathan Groff recently recalled what had drawn him to the HBO series in the first place. "One of the cool things about the show is that no one's having a coming out story. My character is 29, and that's the youngest of the ensemble. Most of the characters are in their 30s and 40s. In this show, everybody's completely fine with the fact they're gay, and so the issues become about their relationships and work. Hopefully it becomes even more relatable to people who aren't gay." (Castro, 6/26)
Info: frameline.org