What We Hold Back
Mike Doyle’s comedy-drama has couples mired at impasses
BY GARY M. KRAMER
Written and directed
by actor-turned-fi lmmaker
Mike Doyle,
“Almost Love” is an
affable romantic comedy-drama
about a handful of neurotic New
Yorkers. Adam (out gay actor Scott
Evans) is fi ve years into his relationship
with internet infl uencer
Marklin (out actor Augustus Prew).
The couple have not tied the knot,
however, because of an issue that
comes to a head in the fi lm. (They
are also in “couples,” as in therapy.)
Meanwhile, their supportive
friends are dealing with equally
fraught relationships. Cammy (Michelle
Buteau) is having a relationship
with Henry (Colin Donnell),
who has a terrible secret; Haley
(Zoe Chao) is tutoring a 17-year-old
student (Christopher Gray), who is
in love with her; and Elizabeth’s
(Kate Walsh) marriage may be on
the skids.
Doyle chatted with Gay City
News about his debut feature fi lm,
the nature of relationships, and the
why queer cinema is important.
GARY M. KRAMER: “Almost
Love” depicts several codependent
characters and relationships.
What inspired you to address these
themes in the way you did?
MIKE DOYLE: I wasn’t looking
to address codependence head on,
but it’s in the fabric of many relationships.
What I was attempting
to do was create a patchwork of
relationships — four iterations —
and hit them at different points,
but at a point where each couple
found themselves stuck. Codependence
can be why we get stuck;
we lose sight of ourselves and are
not the best us in the relationship.
That’s part of the landscape. There
is a fi ne line between mutual interdependence
and codependence. I
wanted to show in the backstory…
it wasn’t imbalance, but something
ever-shifting. With Adam
and Marklin’s relationship, we get
a peek into their history and it
wasn’t always as we see it in the
Augustus Prew and Scott Evans in Mike Doyle’s “Almost Love,” which is available on demand on April 3.
Scott Evans in “Almost Love.”
present day. For me, that was an
important thing to look at — especially
in relationship with two
men, who are socialized to be leaders
and stronger. Sometimes we
are in sync emotionally and fi nancially,
and sometimes we are sine
and cosine.
KRAMER: Your fi lm is also
about communication and connection.
What are your observations
about how people in general, and
gay men in particular, interact?
DOYLE: In any relationship, we
have secrets — things we show, and
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things we hide. I made the choice
to not have something like an affair
for these characters. I wanted
the secret to be more insidious —
honesty. We have these devices in
our pockets and in our hands that
can receive and send things that
might not be healthy for a relationship.
Rather than make that the
catalyst, I wanted to give hints of
that. One character received a text
message that leads down a path,
but it’s fl ipped and not what you
think.
KRAMER: The characters often
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talk about wanting more or being
stuck in a life they didn’t imagine.
What sparked you to write and direct
— are you looking for a life pivot
or to forge a new career path?
DOYLE: I’ve been writing and
directing for a while, but I’ve been
trying to get a feature up and I
was writing things that were a
bit more ambitious. At the beginning
of 2016, I thought I needed to
harken back to my cinematic heroes
and my relationships among
my friends in New York. I wanted
to create a world that was practical
and doable to make this movie.
It’s not so much a career pivot, but
an expansion of my work on TV
shows in New York. I have a desire
to express myself creatively that
lies outside the bounds of acting.
I am a Virgo who is restless and
needs to stay busy. So, fi lmmaking
is the continuation of something I
started several years ago. But on a
much bigger scale.
KRAMER: What can you say
about making a fi lm with realistic
queer characters and being an out
queer fi lmmaker?
DOYLE: I made a conscious effort
to portray these gay characters.
I didn’t want to stare down
old tropes. They’ve come out, battled
their diversity, and are in a
relationship like everyone else. I
was trying to push the notion of
gay cinema ahead a bit. Hopefully,
people will respond.
I can’t imagine myself living
without being truthful about the
most fundamental aspect of my
being but it’s not the only aspect of
my life. I wish I could say it doesn’t
matter anymore whether you’re gay
or straight — and for me it doesn’t
— but we’re in a moment where I
made a conscious decision to hire
two out gay actors for romantic
leads. Meanwhile, straight movie
stars are still being applauded for
their bravery playing gay in Hollywood
fi lms.
ALMOST LOVE | Directed by Mike
Doyle | Vertical Entertainment |
Available Apr. 3 on demand | vertent.
com
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