Just Say Love (2009)

“Guy” (Matthew Jaeger) is sitting on a park bench contemplating Plato when he is approached by the rather uncouth builder “Doug” (Robert Mammana) who has heard that this is a place to go for some easy sex. Initially, the former is uninterested but a conversation sets things in motion that starts the ball rolling on a relationship that goes on to challenge both men’s perceptions of what is gay, straight, and of what love actually means. I rather liked this even though it is scripted to within an inch of it's life - “do you realise how dead that food is?”. The gloomily lit photography looks, much of the time, as though the entire thing has been shot on one camera and edited together using sellotape and lots of good will and it has a stolid presentation that takes some getting used to. All of that said, however, once it builds up an head of steam there is an obvious, quite natural and basic, dynamic between “Guy” and “Doug” and it does work well in this theatre-style multi-set one stage environment. The two performances - particularly Jaeger's - are sensitive, occasionally funny and the dialogue looks at attraction and stereotype but in a slightly observational, and therefore less static fashion. The ending is slightly predictable - despite efforts to tempt a stray cat with vegetarian tuna, but proves testament to the triumph of love over almost all human-made rules and constricts and spins a theory about “Sleeping Beauty” that you’re unlikely to have encountered before.