Fire Island

I struggled with the first hour. It amped up the current-day gay cliches to extreme proportions. The dialogue was solely based around gay men, with gay personalities, talking about being gay, and discussing gay issues which left no space for anything else. On top of that you've got the lead character narrating throughout the entire movie about how we as the audience should feel about gay life. There was a lot of telling not showing.

However, in the moments when the plot positioned the social commentary to the background and had a chance to actually explore gay issues by seeing these men in various situations, as superficial as the exploration may have been, ultimately led to a well-meaning warm-hearted place. There were moments of genuine insight, and occasional laugh out loud moments peppered throughout, and Margaret Cho will never not be a delight to watch.

However the outcome felt a little undercooked and reliant on stereotyped one liners that often didn't land and an idea of what a gay screenwriter thinks what gay men want to see. I would have loved a high comedy version of the HBO TV series 'Looking' type experience where no cliches are allowed and all characters have depth and dimension. This exploration felt a little cynical, mean and lazy in parts.