Two little words: David W. Ross and Glenn Gaylord's G&L rom-dram, I DO, hits DVD

I DO, the new GLBT romantic drama that hits the street on DVD this Tuesday is an odd but not uninteresting duck. Its 90 minute running time ensures that, considering how plot-heavy and character driven it is, the movie flies by quickly. Yet that very plot, with all that's going on among the four separate groups whose lives inter-twine, demands much more time to bring all this to fully explored life.

So we have a perfectly OK little gay & lesbian romantic drama that hits its points squarely and well and slides along the surface of things with often consummate skill. The film's writer (David W. Ross) sees to it that the bases are covered in this tale of a Brit in New York City whose immigration/
green card status changes after 9/11, and what he must do to remain in the U.S., where family obligations are primary. Director Glenn Gaylord (shown at left) likewise gets good performances all around from his smart and generally well-chosen cast.

The reason that our hero, Jack (played by the film's writer, Mr. Ross, above), needs to stay in the U.S. involves his deceased brother, the brother's widow (a fine Alicia Witt, below, right) and their young daughter -- still unborn when that brother was killed in an accident but now 7 years old -- for whom Jack has been both uncle and dad.

The best solution seems to be for Jack to marry his best friend Ali (Jamie-Lynn Sigler, below, right), a lesbian with seemingly insoluble love problems of her own, who might as well do her friend this very big favor.

Once ensconced, Jack then meets the love of his life, Mano (Maurice Compte, below, right) while Ali begins developing something more than friendly feelings for Jack. Meanwhile Mano, a Spaniard, has problems of his own taking place back in Spain.

Toss in an aging photographer friend, Sam (Mickey Cotrell) with a novel solution to Jack's immigration problems, plus the cute kid, Craig (Mike C. Manning), to whom Jack turns from time to time for easy sex and who, himself, has a mad crush on our somewhat thoughtless and narcissistic "hero," and you have a whirligig of situations, each one of which might make a movie all its own.

Cram all this into 90 minutes and little wonder I Do seems a tad shallow. Ms Siegler's and Mr. Manning's characters in particular are clearly under-served, while we must take on faith that Mano is Jack's "dream man" for we, as does Jack, know damn little about him. Yet the film does deal with some important topics -- marriage equality and immigration equality among them -- which makes it timely.

Perhaps Mr. Ross might have considered either bringing in someone else to work on the script to provide a more distanced and objec-tive eye, or hiring someone else to portray the lead character. Not that Ross is unattractive or a bad actor. He's fine and he's got quite a body (which he's more than happy to show off). Yet the movie smacks not a little of narcissism and vanity. I couldn't even find a single publicity still from the film in which Ross does not appear.

I Do, from Breaking Glass Pictures, comes available on DVD this Tuesday, September 3, for sale and/or rental from the usual suspects. You can also see it via iTunes, Amazon Video, PlayStation network, and soon on Google play, YouTube, Viewster and CinemaNow. Worldwide streaming will be eventually in the cards, too, via Distrify.

The photos above are either from the film itself or,

in the case of Mr. Gaylord's, taken by Alberto E. Rodriguez, 

courtesy of Getty Images North America.

Guyana time, as Shundell Prasad takes us to an exotic locale via FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

We don't see that many movies about -- or coming out of -- Guyana, so, for that reason alone, Trust
Movies was interested in viewing FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS, the first narrative film from Shundell Prasad, a young woman who has previously made a couple of documentar-ies. On the plus side, the film offer an ini-tially exotic setting, is relatively colorful and features some good performances from actors both known (Jimi Mistry, Aidan Quinn) and unknown (the rest of the cast).

That's the extent of the positive. On the negative side is just about every-thing else: for starters, plot, characterization, dialog and common sense. If you are going to set your film in a country like Guyana, and  begin it with a lovely scene that takes place during the titular Festival of Lights, and then almost immed-iately move to a scene of enormous violence in which the lives of an entire family are threa-tened, how about giving viewers a little explana-tion of what is going on? Ms Prasad, shown at right, perhaps not want-ing to expose her viewers to too much exposition, elects to leave us totally in the dark.

Not only do we not know what is happening to that poor neighbor family (or why), we're also left wondering why our own little nuclear trio (above) -- mom, dad and daughter -- must leave the country immediately. Politics as usual? Criminal activity? Maybe an evil dictatorship? A little context, please.

In any case, mom and little daughter Reshma are allowed to emigrate to the USA, but not dad, and after a couple of perfunctory "oh, how hard it is for new immigrants!" scenes, mom (the very elegant and beautiful Ritu Singh Pande in her first screen role, above) is suddenly married to her corporate boss (Mr. Quinn) and little Reshma has turned into a very hot and rebellious teenager (Melinda Shankar, below).

The plot, such as it is, involves much mother-daughter tsuris, father idolization, boyfriend trouble, rape and getting into New York Uni-versity by sporting very poor grades. Then it's back to Guyana to find Dad (Mr. Mistry, below), where the movie really falls apart.

As a writer/director, Ms Prasad appears to have little under-standing of how to build suspense or even to clue us in on how and why the bad guys (prison guards, warden and government officials) intend to manage their nefarious deeds. Suddenly we have everything from drugs and guns to prison breaks and double dealing, but who is doing what to whom and why is up for grabs. As silly as this section seems, when we're back in America again, silly goes exponential.

These final sections indicate Ms Prasad as the kind of filmmaker who, if a situation is needed to further her plot, she will damn well make it occur, believable or not. Does Dad need to be at a certain special event? Fine, he'll be there. Must the FBI be kept away from that same event? Sorry. boys, you're out!

The filmmaker's penchant for control-no-matter-what also extends to characterization. These characters, particularly those played by Mr. Quinn and Ms Pande, seem to swivel on a dime to fit whatever new situation is needed. All this does not make for much viewer credence, but I hope that our filmmaker will learn from her mistakes for the next time 'round.

Festival of Lights opens this Friday, November 2, in New York City at the AMC Village 7 theater (the recent Manhattan flood situation permitting), and on the following Friday, November 9, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Noho 7.

ILLEGAL, Belgium's entry into the Oscar sweeps, tracks the immigrant experience

One of the most powerful and immediate films about illegal immigrants (from any country) to yet hit New York screens -- or screen, to be precise; so far it's opening in one theater, the Cinema Village on Friday, March 25 -- ILLEGAL tracks the experience over a decade of a Russian immigrant and her son in Belgium. To the credit of that small country that resides next to France and part of whose population shares the French language, the film was chosen to represent Belgium in the Best Foreign Lan-guage Film category, despite it showing us some wretched behavior from immigration authorities that may or may not have been well-known to the Belgian government prior to the film's release.

Written and directed -- with a fine eye and ear for both everyday detail and the appropriate choice of same that combines to build a believable world around the main characters -- by Olivier Masset-Depasse (shown at left), the film takes us into the lives of a mother Tania (Anne Coesens, below left) and son Ivan (played by the director's own son Milo, at age six, and for the rest of the film by Alexandre Gontcharov, below, right). Living in that constantly anxious state (which director and actress capture in spades) that I would think all illegals find themselves from day one until they are either caught and deported or manage to become "legal," Tania tries to get her son to speak French rather than Russian when in public so that they will not be so noticeable. Being a teenager who imagines that things have always been/will always be as they are, he doesn't comply. One day, out of nowhere, they pay the price for this.

A great strength of writer/director Masset-Depasse is his ability to tell and show just enough to grab us via questions that will only be answered  in time. This keeps us alert and questioning even more. Just what are the Belgian "rules" -- for both prison life and the more "normal" life outside -- that illegals learn to heed? The games that Tania, as well as her captors, play in order to finally win the day are sometimes bizarre and at first seem rather benign, but as the film progresses and the attempts to have Tania deported grow fiercer, the movie becomes stronger and more difficult to watch. I would imagine that these games and rules change in their specifics, and perhaps heavily, from country to country, yet the perseverance shown by Tania in the face of enormous power that wants to see her gone is finally remarkable

Who is responsible -- and why -- for the horrible bruises and beatings that inmate Aïssa (a terrific job from Essé Lawson, below right) bears each time she returns to incarceration? When and how we finally learn the answer makes for one of the most powerful and shocking scenes in the film. Masset-Depasse doesn't shy away from the ugly side of things but neither does he rub our noses in it. In fact, prison life in some ways seems remarkably benign, all things considered. One guard (whom I believe is played by Fabienne Mainguet, below, left) is genuinely kind and friendly, and the closeness and help the prisoners provide each other is also bracing for them -- and for us viewers.

There's a scene toward the end of the film that takes place on a plane full of passengers that is remarkable. Handled very skillfully by the director and his cast, it shows us with reality and force how mere citizens can rise up when their sense of justice and fairness is called into play. This scene is key, I think, to the often confused and jumbled reactions we have toward "illegals"  and how -- seemingly on a dime, when we observe something that yanks at our gut -- our response can change from uncaring or negative to completely pro-active. And yet...  I suspect this particular scene could only happen in Europe. America, I fear, would still side with the "law."

Illegal -- a wonderful and important film about a topic that will only grow more urgent worldwide -- raises all the above questions and more. From the increasingly indispensable Film Movement, the movie's getting a one-week release (March 25-31) in New York at the Cinema Village. So view it there, wait for the DVD to appear, or become a member of this film-of-the-month-club with very smart mainstream/art-house taste. But see it, in any case.

HERE AND THERE, '09 Tribeca winner from Darko Lungulov, opens at last

Robert (David Thornton) -- a dour, depressed and down-on-his-luck musician -- gets involved with a feckless Serbian immigrant in New York (Branislav Trifunovic), who corrals him into a marriage-for-money scheme that takes him to Serbia.  A fish-out-of-water/
curmudgeon-sees-the-light story, HERE AND THERE is also a rom-com-cum-
immigration-fable that -- due to its short running time (80 minutes) and refusal to take itself too seriously -- works pretty well.  Plus, it offers Cyndi Lauper in a couple of scenes and one of her songs on its soundtrack.

Written and directed (his first narrative feature) by Darko Lungulov (shown at right), the movie makes a nice u-turn midway along, which you may expect by that point but appreciate nonetheless because it confounds your earlier expectations.  If the film is finally a little too tepid as its story morphs into something different, it still grows more interesting, even as it becomes a bit predictable.  Yet Lungulov never pushes, and if his subsidiary characters -- Mr Trifunovic, for instance, and his dealings with an Hispanic sleazebag (Antone Pagan) -- smack more of convenience than believability, it is all handled with a light touch.

What Here and There manages quite cleverly is to turn the tables on the old, coming-to-America theme.  It's Thorton (above) who turns out to be the immigrant throughout much of the movie, and he is welcomed in Serbia far more than are Serbs (or most other "foreigners") here in the USA.  Creativity, too (in this case music), is given its due, as Robert begins to relax, loosen up and get back in touch with his art.  The wonderful actress Mirjana Karanovic (shown below, from Fräulein, Grbavica, Witnesses, Cabaret Balkan, Underground) is a enormous help to the movie, grounding it with her quiet presence.  So full of feeling, wisdom and sexuality is Karanovic, no wonder this deeply appealing actress works consistently.

At last year's Tribeca Film Fest (2009), Lungulov's film won the Best New York Narrative Award and then promptly disappeared from view, so it's nice to have it back in sight. If only to see the gradual opening up of Thorton's angry character (when he finally smiles, it's like the world's first sunrise), the movie is worth a look.

Here and There opened yesterday, May 14, in NYC at the Quad Cinema, where it will play for one week, before opening in Los Angeles on May 21 at the Laemmle Music Hall.