BEFORE: Slight change of plans here, because I was going to get right to the final three films in the romance chain, all of which star Diane Lane - and had I done that, then TWO actors would have carried over from "Eat Pray Love", and you know I love when that happens. But then I realized I could include this other film with James Franco, which is now on Netflix, and I'm always afraid these films are going to disappear off that service before I get a chance to see them. But this one could go here, or it could go later in the month, when I'm planning to watch another bunch of James Franco films - they do have a tendency to accumulate, after all.
So, how to decide, watch this one here and delay the end of the romance-themed chain by another day, or table this one for screening in late March, instead of early March? Well, a couple of factors helped me decide. First off, my calculations were off on the iTunes rental date for "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", so I might have three days of down-time waiting for that. (I know I saw an Academy screener kicking around the studio, but it seems to have vanished...) Three days without a film is not necessarily a bad thing, because later on it could make the difference between rushing to see "Avengers: Endgame" on opening day, or having the luxury to wait until the following Monday, which sounds a lot more do-able. It's usually much harder to get a ticket for opening weekend.
But then I realized today is Ash Wednesday (or as I like to call it, "Spot the Catholic") and this film is not just about love, it's also religion-themed. So that's the deciding factor, this one gets moved up on the list, fits between two other James Franco films, possibly turns 3 days of downtime next week into 2, and I've got something that thematically fits with a religious holiday, potentially. And after tomorrow, I'll be back on track and catch up on the other films in the Franco-file at the end of March. OK?
THE PLOT: Based on the fascinating true-life story of Michael Glatze, a gay activist who became a Christian pastor after identifying as a heterosexual.
AFTER: Another connection between "Eat Pray Love" and this film is that both lead characters test-drive a couple of religions while they're going through their crises - for Elizabeth Gilbert, that meant praying to the Christian God, then giving Hinduism a while. For Michale Glatze, he took a couple of runs at Buddhism and Mormonism before becoming a preacher himself. Since I used to identify as Catholic myself, though no longer, I get where they're coming from. Times change, people change and their situations change, we shouldn't judge anyone without walking a mile in their shoes first.
But I'll let you in on a little secret - "happily ever after" only really exists in fairy tales and Hollywood movies, which have the benefit of saying "The End" in big bold type, or just fading to black and letting the audience extrapolate potential happiness into the future. But I did some research on the author of "Eat Pray Love", and even though the guru in Bali predicted a long, happy marriage, her union with the Brazilian businessman did not last into forever. (Really, whose does?). She and José (called Felipe in the film) got married in 2007, but they split up in 2016, when the author announced that she was in a relationship with her female best friend, and this was of course connected to the end of her marriage. She realized her feelings for her best friend after a cancer diagnosis (the friend's, not hers) and though it may have shocked thousands of fans of the film, of course I'm not going to judge, not without walking a mile in her shoes, because times change, people change and their situations change, too.
It's pointless to ask why, because there could be a dozen reasons. And if I understood at all how and why someone's sexual orientation can change over time, then I might still be married to my first wife. (Then again, who's to say, that still probably would have crashed and burned over time, I think the attraction to HER female friend only accelerated the process.). Again, I'm just going to shrug and say that times change, people change and their situations change, then everyone else just has to adapt. And in all of these cases, I don't have any solid answers, just more questions, many of which I'm just not comfortable asking. How can someone be straight and then gay, or in the case of Michael Glatze, gay and then straight? Were they bisexual all along? Because you rarely hear people say that, they tend to deal only in absolutes based on who they're with at the time. Right? Maybe it's hard to step back and take a look at your life from a distance and say that you were that way then and this way now? Like I used to sing in a cappella groups, but I don't any more. I used to play chess, but I don't really any more. There's who I am, someone who can play chess, and there's what I do, which is, umm, other things but not that, factored over time am I both a chess player and a non-chess player?
Everybody's going to be a lot of different things over the course of their lives - a student, an athlete, a fast-food worker, an independent business owner, a musician, an artist, married, single, divorced or widowed - so do you define yourself by what you are RIGHT NOW, or by the entire road that you've traveled? It's a tough call. Maybe you're the type of person who falls in love with someone because they're funny or smart or they seem interested in you, and their gender isn't the first thing that you notice. If so, good for you, you're open-minded and progressive and you've got the world on a string, plus you've got twice the odds of finding love (or just some action) as some others do. George Carlin used to quip about bisexuality - "Just think about all the phone numbers you'd accumulate. You might as well just walk around with the phone book under your arm." (For the millennials out there, a "phone book" was a big bunch of dead-tree paper that listed the address and phone number of everyone in a city or town.)
And so we come to the story of Michael Glatze, a prominent gay activist and magazine writer who at some point changed his outlook or his attitude or his orientation (all of this is left fairly unclear, as you might imagine) and found religion and started dating women, or at least A woman. Normally I treat anyone who says things like "God spoke to me..." or "Gold told me x, y and z" as being full of shit, from the Pope right on down. The priesthood is a crock, celibacy is a bastardization of the Bible's teachings, and anyone who says they KNOW what happens after we die is lying, or at the very least misguided. So what makes a gay activist suddenly turn his life in a different direction?
According to this film, it's a combination of health scares (Glatze thought he had a heart condition, but it turned out to just be panic attacks) combined with meeting some people while on a road trip who found comfort in their religion. Is that enough? I don't know, because the movie can't really get inside his head and tell us all of his thoughts. This isn't just a failing of this film, it's a failing of the medium in general. Films use all kinds of tricks like flashbacks and dream sequences to suggest what characters are thinking and feeling, but it's never really enough, is it? Especially in cases like this, where having Glatze SAY what's on his mind would be too obvious, and would also be quite speculative.
It's too bad, because this is an interesting story, and it's thought-provoking, which most films these days seem to have forgotten how to be. And the real tragedy is that Glatze used to be the guy who said that gay and straight, these are just social constructs, labels that people created in the last couple of centuries. It's true, the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't seem to frown on same-sex love, it was just another flavor on the menu. I guess people only got all uptight about it during Victorian times. Glatze was in a perfect position to go out and speak with the young people, which he did for a while, to tell them that it's all the same, it's all good if it makes you happy. But then what changed, why couldn't he take his own advice and accept himself in a different way?
How does a person's attitude change from "gay and straight are just labels" to "I'm straight, and being gay is abnormal"? Was his turning against the gay community just a case of self-loathing directed outward? More importantly, why? Is there a difference between being happy and just believing that you're happy? Is there a difference between believing in God and just wanting to believe in God? Is changing your mind about religion as you get older just motivated by the fear of dying and finding out there's nothing afterwards? Or is finding religion later on just wishful thinking?
I can only shrug and say that times change, people change, and their situations change. There's been sort of a mini-wave lately of films about gay conversion ("Boy Erased" leaps to mind, I know there have been others, like "The Miseducation of Cameron Post") so I'm going to have to just put a pin in this topic and hope to gain more understanding later on.
Also starring Zachary Quinto (last seen in "For the Love of Spock"), Emma Roberts (last seen in "Nerve"), Charlie Carver, Avan Jogia, Devon Graye, Leven Rambin (last seen in "The Hunger Games"), Blake Lee (last seen in "The To Do List"), Kevin Cahoon, Jefferson Mays (last seen in "Rebel in the Rye"), Jan Maxwell, Ahna O'Reilly (last seen in "Fruitvale Station"), with cameos from Daryl Hannah (last seen in "Grumpier Old Men"), Lesley Ann Warren (last seen in "Secretary")
RATING: 5 out of 10 prayer circles
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