- Summary: Two young couples in New York-one black and gay, one white and heterosexual-find their lives intertwined as they create new relationship norms, explore sexual identity, and redefine monogamy.
- Director: Rodney Evans
- Genre(s): Drama
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 8
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Mixed: 5 out of 8
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Negative: 2 out of 8
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70The cast—and Evans's deft hand with them—makes it worth checking out.
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60Full of warmth and refreshingly matter-of-fact sexuality, the film has its heart in the right place, yet it’s ultimately a bit blander than its subject matter ought to demand, and its chamber-piece intimacy and pileup of coincidences scan particularly awkwardly given its convincingly wide-open depiction of New York.
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60Aside from a few missing transitional beats and one too many coincidental encounters, the picture's fluid, zigzagging sexuality and emotional high-diving prove largely credible and diverting.
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60Evans directs energetically, and the personable actors help to keep us involved, but the picture skims stubbornly along the surface.
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40Kudos to Evans for making up for the galling lack of gay African-American screen representation while delivering hot-body eroticism, but reducing complex relationship issues to a typical indie-flick blatherathon—complete with performances of varying quality and stilted dialogue—isn’t helping anyone.
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Aug 11, 201338Ken Urban, adapting his own play, fumbles at injections of urban, and decidedly not urbane, levity, in addition to telegraphing entire subplots.
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25A movie about bisexuals sounds fresh and fun on paper, but a sensitive acoustic song under the opening credits shows exactly where The Happy Sad is going. Deadly earnestness and sex don’t mix well at the movies.
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