Good Enough: A Modern Musical (2023)

Wow! For an indie musical film, this film is highly impressive. As a film maker myself I know what it's like to produce just a short film and it's incredibly challenging. The music is A+ and brings Good Enough to a higher standard and production value. The music alone is on par with Hollywood produced work. The singers were also vocally stunning! To find and cast this project I'm sure was hard work. Huge applause to Mike Spears and his whole Spoltz Productions team! I'm blown away. Yes, cinematography could be better but not damaging to the project as a whole. Keep up the good work.

"Jamal" (Jay Towns) is the upcoming basketball player who arranges an hook up on the internet. He is surprised to find that it's college television anchorman "Trevor" (Trey Mendlik) who turns up. That doesn't put them off, and indeed they meet more than once as the latter man begins to fall in love and the former has to come to terms with his own identity. Can they make a go of it? Well jeopardy wasn't high on the writer's list of priorities with this predictably turbulent tale of finding your feet, but it's a little more engaging than your run of the mill gay drama. That's maybe because the supporting characters are a bit stronger. France Jean-Baptiste and Beka both work quite well as the mothers as does Pete Berwick as the layabout and rather odious father of "Trevor" who manages to mix his racism and homophobia in quite a toxically entertaining fashion. It's peppered with some decent enough songs that help it showcase some of the issues faced by young people coming out, and by those dealing with unhappy marriages, drugs, yes all that usual melodrama stuff - but again, it sort of works better than you might expect. It's essentially a project for the stage, though, I think. Cinema doesn't really do it any favours as the audio mix is pretty dire as is the voice dubbing for the songs. In many ways it's no worse than the over-hyped "Theatre Camp" (2023) and won't scare you away. It's aptly named.