Growing up, at bedtime, some of our parents read us “Rapunzel.” Others, with far more time on their hands, awed our youthful minds with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone along with its twenty sequels.
However, writer/director Gary Jaffe, while his Pampers were being changed, was apparently exposed to the carryings-on of the boys in Mart Crowley’s band. Certainly, Jaffe’s new film, Before I Do, makes it seem that way.
In both works, a group of externally happy homosexuals attend a party, scream with joy a lot, bitch, dance, eat, and play the Truth Game. Both also cast Robin de Jesús, the at-times effeminate queen (“like a butterfly in heat”) with a heart of gold, pursed lips, and a vocal range that seems at times stuck in fortissimo. (Mr. de Jesús, thrice nominated for a Tony Award, starred in both The Boys in the Band on Broadway and in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix adaptation.)
The film opens with a moping Alex (Michael Hsu Rosen) on a pier in the Berkshires. Wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’s getting ready to host a “bachelor/bachelorette” party for his soon-to-be-wed ex, John Michael (Cole Dosman), who will arrive shortly in a car packed with several of their college buddies.
But at that early moment, Alex is a bit in pain as he throws his unused wedding ring into the lake. You see, he was until recently situated in L.A., where he was going to marry an attractive, abusive alcoholic wall-puncher. John Michael, sick of hearing him cry on the phone, flew to the Coast and rescued him.
Cut to a shot of John Michael in his own apartment fingering his wedding ring in bed beside his apparently wonderful, bare-assed betrothed, David, who’s asleep on his stomach. (This is the fiancé’s lone screen appearance, probably not enough time to merit a SAG-AFTRA card.)
Please note that John Michael is a dedicated lawyer, and Alex had left him years earlier for an ornery music producer. You see, the vocally gifted Alex once dreamt of being a singer, and he yearned for excitement. A comely, sweet, stick-in-the-mud lawyer didn’t sate his needs. Yes, if there were an Excitement category at the Olympics, John Michael might be lucky to score a 2.
Moving on, the gang of five is soon reunited in the Berkshires.
The crew includes the endearing, lithely muscular, mustachioed gym bunny, Simon (Jared Reinfeldt), who, if he ever took a Valium, might be on many a chap’s wish list, and nearby there’s his much shorter sidekick, Luis (de Jesús), whom Simon wants to get screwed by.
Best of all there’s John Michael’s childhood friend Kit (the slyly charismatic Nico Greetham) who has decided to reveal his newly acquired bisexuality. “I like dick, too,” he shares to everyone’s surprise. Kit’s also the only one here who reads books, has adult thoughts, and is blessed with a moral compass.
If you like surprises, Before I Do might not be for you. If you’ve ever seen a rom-com or a rom-dram, you’ll know from the first five minutes here that the two leads will wind up copulating before the party’s over. Consequently, the “suspense” is all post-coital. Will John Michael ditch his David and reunite with the annoying moper who supplied him with so many lovely memories until he didn’t? Or, please God, let David, who’s probably still snoozing bare-assed to the wind on his Saatva mattress, remain the bride.
But what might satisfy many cinephiles, who are for some reason bypassing such brilliant new LGBTQI offerings as La Bola Negra, Elsinore, and Coward, is Jaffe’s heartfelt script and fine direction, plus the cast’s solid performances. It’s not easy to be in your thirties and convincingly act like a 12-year-old.
Additionally, there are those moments when the characters do fess up to wrestling with their queerness… resisting the erasure of their sexuality by both kin and the guardians at the gate.
Reinfeldt’s Simon says it best as he raises his glass and spouts his bachelor-party toast: “To being here, to being queer and never getting used to it. We wake up as weirdos, and I think that’s great. We’re born with this wild desire to fuck ourselves into genetic oblivion. . . . If Darwin is right, we shouldn’t exist, but we do! It’s like God says, ‘I don’t know. Make it up!’ So it’s kind of funny to get [together] like this, to be with people who understand what it’s like to be us,” he ends.
At this point, you might look around the theater at your fellow queer filmgoers and nod your head.