Jeffrey (1995)

I kept expecting Sir Ian McKellen to pop up here to compliment the entertainingly camp contribution from his best pal Patrick Stewart in this otherwise rather unremarkable story. It’s all about “Jeffrey” (Steven Weber) who is one of those actors-cum-waiters who merrily enjoys the fruits of his New York existence until the arrival of AIDS turn him into a sexually neurotic monk. No more nookie for him, it’s all about his career - and, yep, that just frustrates the poor man. Things aren’t exactly helped by his flamboyant pal “Sterling” (Stewart) who has a much younger and HIV+ boyfriend “Darius” (Bryan Batt) who keeps telling him that he needs to get laid more. Then he bumps into “Steve” (Michael T. Weiss) and they take to each other. Snag? Well it turns out that “Steve” is also positive and so “Jeffrey” is now faced with quite a dilemma. On the plus side, this drama does showcase the extent to which many gay people donned a psychological, if not actually a physical, suit of armour when the AIDS epidemic struck. Terrified of the consequences of their previous license and/or determined never to take risks again - however that “risk” might be defined or apply, practically, to their life and lifestyle. On that front, Weber does OK and at times the whole thing comes across quite touchingly, but sadly there’s too much emphasis on the stereotypes and the writing takes refuge all too often in the realms of that kind of gay comedy that Armistead Maupin might have written on a bad day. It’s all a question of living life to the full or living in fear, but somehow any semblance of sensible and responsible compromise is not on the agenda here and so it all rather falls between a predictable set of tram lines. It has it’s moments, but in the end it’s just so-so.