This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Off Sides and Holding
Plot Overview
Five Chicago football friends have rooted
for their team through six grueling seasons. The black fan at times tells a
white one to tone down his enthusiasm, i.e. limit his high-fives (“You're white, man. Let it
go.”) Two of them Oscar Novak (Matthew Perry) and Peter
Steinberg (Oliver Platt) are architects in business together.
Steinberg is the senior partner. He's unabashedly gay.
Their favorite player is running back
Kevin Cartwright (Cylk Cozart) who is a hunk on the field or off.
Though seen with a lot of (white) chicks, KC is a latent homosexual. His recent fling
was with glass artist Amy Post (Neve Campbell) who's going through
“a string of unavailable men.” She started in college
with a foreign exchange student, study partner whose home country
couldn't abide their lesbianism, passed through Mr. Football,
with social connections that ‘society's child’ couldn't
quite transcend—she's white and he's black,—and now
she's mistress to BSD
Charles Newman (Dylan McDermott) who's married. As luck would have
it Newman is taking bids on a new cultural center and offers favorable
encouragement to Novak & Steinberg.
Newman's secretary Lenore (Deborah Rush) who's
accustomed to seeing restrained, hetero displays—air
kisses, cheek busses—catches the two football fans in a
manly squeeze and mistakes them for homos. It's confirmed by two competing
architects—themselves closet queers—who go ahead
and tarnish the others' reputation. This gets passed on to Newman
who seeking a safe spy on his mistress taps Oscar for observing her
(“keep her close”) at an art exhibit not realizing he's
straight. Out of loyalty to his partner Peter who needs the pending
job offer, he goes along with the assignment. Nature takes its course
and their boy-girl chemistry heats up. What follows is a formulaic
rom-com with the added dimension of homophobic irony.
Ideology
The starry-eyed couple stops for a bite at a greasy spoon the Canary
Restaurant where the waiter (Michael Proudfoot) pushes the special:
tuna melt. Rather than argue with him they accept his
recommendation and throw up later. It was an open sandwich of
American cheese over expired tuna, an unsavory combination reminiscent
of the forced scenes in which a negro busses a white girl. But if
you wait till the end credits roll, you will see the place
transformed into a swinging hot spot with black musicians
entertaining a mixed audience. In the same vein, the movie opens
with lively swing/jazz music danced to by a man & woman in silhouette,
the lady changing partners at times without missing a beat. The
colored band members are spotlighted in turn on their instruments
of trumpet, trombone, cello, mike, sax & drums. This black dance
form incorporates many moves that are gender-specific, the man and
woman doing different ones choreographed to the same music. It's
easier, say, for the man to throw the lighter-framed woman into the
air than vice versa.
The movie proper opens with
an executive and his mistress clothed, in bed, in a master closet
off an office adorned with Buddha statues. The heathen, we figure,
have mistresses as well as wives; in western culture the mistresses
are in the closet.
The
executive lines up a pending contractor whom he thinks is gay to keep
an eye on his mistress while he must attend to his wife's plans. The
whole thing gets out of hand and we see the contractor's dad beating
his head against the wall when he finds out his son's a pervert. There's
a statue of the Virgin there in the garage, so this must represent the
Church's feeling on the matter. His mom, though, is cool with it. Go
figure. When he loses credibility with the lady of his desire, Peter
advises him, “You do know there are other fish in the sea?”
Oscar replies, “But what if you found the fish?”
Here have arisen conflicts à la, (Prov.
30:33) “Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,
and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing
of wrath bringeth forth strife.” The idea in the proverb is that a state of peace and
conciliation can change to one of war just as a liquid (milk) can
change to solid (butter) through constant agitation (churning.) Or
hit a critical area (nose) and it bleeds. It was the sap's prolonged
misrepresentations to the woman that eventually brought down the curtain
on whatever they had going, and she meeting the exec's wife portends
doom to that arrangement, too.
Amy's glass blowing is
demonstrated in this movie: heating some in the kiln, extracting a
globule, inserting a pipe and blowing into it to expand it into a
bubble, then dousing it in water to settle its form or break it if
it's not what was desired. One would think it the same as turning
liquid milk into solid butter, or vice versa, but it's not quite.
Peter the well educated architect knows his materials well enough
to understand that glass—even at room temperature—is
an amorphous solid. The liquid when doused first becomes supercooled
then when cooled below the glass transition temperature, it solidifies
into a state somehere between liquid and solid. The chemical bonds don't
belong to any crystalline lattice to qualify it as an ordinary solid.
This state of limbo is a viable representation for homosexuality being not so much what you are (fixed) but whom you do (malleable.) Different homos are that way to different degrees. The footballer was questioning but never got his feet wet. Amy had one all-but-forgotten lesbian episode in college. Oscar was gay under social pressure but then came to his senses. There was one scene in an AA meeting in which a troubled man stood up and announced, “I'm gay,” to receive support from his fellow sufferers. These alcoholics never consider themselves cured but learn to keep it in check from day to day with help from a higher power. Same with homosexuality from a Christian perspective: if you can't get over it somehow, then you just have to learn to resist the inclination as one does any temptation until the Lord receives you into glory.
When Amy said she almost had a crush on Oscar, that was internal, we take it at face value for what she says. Human sex is supposed to function according to the equipment one has, male or female. Some people's heads are not in line with with their bodies. David Burns, M.D. has given one example of a workable sex reorientation therapy in his popular 1985 book, Intimate Connections, pp. 239–40, but none is tried in this movie.
Production Values
“” (1999) was directed by Damon Santostefano. It was written by Rodney Patrick Vaccaro and Aline Brosh McKenna. It stars Neve Campbell, Matthew Perry and Dylan McDermott. The cast were experienced actors who played their parts in this rom-com like a walk in the park. Neve Campbell had a no nudity clause in her contract.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for sex-related situations and language. Although there were a couple solid punches landed on noses, they didn't bleed. A lot of the racy content was conveyed through innuendo, raised eyebrows, shrugged shoulders, and humming. Situational understanding also contributed. Runtime is 1½ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
This one is not for the faint of heart and the short ninety minute exposure is welcome. Judging from the differing reactions of the lead's parents to his non-revelation, one might be well advised to tread lightly if he brings a date. Its subject material is good to avoid, but if you can't, at least here's a humorous treatment of it. I have an engineering background, so I picked up on the glass analogy straight off. Depending on people's viewpoints they might be laughing in different places or for different reasons. It takes all kinds.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: Predictable. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
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