Being queer can be quite a burden and trying to be a Christian an even greater burden. Being queer while trying to be a Christian at the same time can often seem impossible.
I wasn't sure what to expect with this movie and at the start of it I almost stopped watching. It seemed it might turn out to be sort of a slapstick lampooning of Christianity with actors hurling Leviticus quotes at one another and mocking the preacher & his small flock of blindly loyal followers.
It was presented as a small stage production in a theater with very limited, unchanging stage props and a spotlight directing our attention. No beautiful scenery. No high tech special effects. Its success relied totally on the script and the actors. It was riveting and they were excellent.
There was comedy, some of it exceedingly funny. There was mockery, but it was aimed at those whose practice of religion perverts what God and Christ are all about and those who misrepresent what Christianity ought to be about.
And there is a lot of pain in this film. Sometimes the pain comes abruptly in the midst of the comedy, but it is the real pain known all too well by young queers trying desperately to understand who they are, what other people think of them and, especially, why it seems that God, "who so loved the world ..." seems to have forsaken them.
And for those of us who have already lived so many years trying to cope with the burden of being queer while trying to be Christian ( or Jewish or Muslim or
) and sometimes wondering if we got it all wrong, this movie identified so many of the doubts, so much of the hurt and exposed a great deal of the despair & loneliness we have felt and did it with profound accuracy.
Most importantly, after putting us through some great comedy along with some heart-breaking drama, we weren't left in a heap of anguish and hopelessness or with a cynical disregard & dismissal of our beliefs, but with hope and with a realization the Christian message is truly about love even if many of the messengers and practitioners have got it wrong.
I'm sure some people will be offended by it, but for anyone willing to listen and especially for anyone who has or is trying to deal with it all personally, this was a great experience. The actors were superb and the setting was well chosen so as not to distract from the importance of what was being said. I plan to watch several more times. 10/10
