➤ STRAIGHT UP, from p.24
“Straight Up” wrings knowing
laughs from gay stereotypes and
pop culture references, past and
present (there’s a fun running joke
about Paul Newman). But Sweeney
also infuses his fi lm with poignant
moments as well as perceptive insights
about love and relationships.
In addition, the fi lmmaker employs
inventive visuals that frame the
characters to comment on the action
and their emotions.
“Straight Up” subverts the gay
man/ straight girl relationship,
which was Sweeney’s intent. In
a recent phone interview, he explained,
“I imagined the fi lm to be
a homage to and deconstruction
of the romantic comedy genre and
screwball comedies as well. It came
from a place of wanting to put two
lonely characters together who fi nd
safety in one another and tell it in
a lighthearted, zippy way.”
Comparisons can be made to
classic queer fi lms like “The Wedding
Banquet,” “Kissing Jessica
Stein,” and “The Object of My Affection.”
Sweeney was not, however, looking
to reinvent the queer rom-com
genre. He merely wanted to explore
➤ THE WHISTLERS, from p.24
the fall of communism.
“The Whistlers” piles up movie
reference upon movie reference. It
interpolates a TV clip from “The
Searchers.” Gilda is named after
Rita Hayworth’s classic fi lm noir
character. The omnipresence of
cameras brings Fritz Lang’s “The
1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse” to mind.
The Hotel Opera is designed to look
like a noir still, complete with refl
ections from diagonal blinds and
lush lighting. (Its desk clerk calls
attention to the fi lm’s heavy use of
classical music within a scene set
there.) Still, none of this is particularly
deep.
Porumboiu’s work has always
had a deadpan, comic brilliance
and conceptual quality. (After all,
he once made a documentary in
which he fi lmed himself and his
father watching a videotape of a
football game and talking about it
for 97 minutes.) His last fi lm, the
documentary “Infi nite Football,”
was oddly reminiscent of the TV
show “Nathan For You.”
the idea of a relationship between
two people in love who face issues
in their relationship in an authentic
way but through a different
lens.
The fi lm benefi ts from a strong
narrative approach that contrasts
Todd and Rory’s stories; they
complement each other. (Sweeney
acknowledged that his characters
“represent two different parts of
my personality.”) But “Straight Up”
also features strong visuals as well,
from split screens to clever framing
that allows Todd and Rory to have
an argument sitting next to each
other but fi lmed separately.
He explained about the visual
approach, “We wanted things to
feel real, if stylized and elevated,
but not feel like they were stock
or quirky characters. A lot of the
story involves bifurcated vignettes.
It is a dual protagonist story and
the foundation of that is mutual
respect. I wanted to give Todd and
Rory equal weight in how we cover
them visually. His style is static
and minimalist, and she’s more
chaotic and handheld. Together
they blend, and we introduce
movement. When you fi nd yourself
consumed in someone else’s world,
their styles complement and fi ll
Vlad Ivanov in Corneliu Porumboiu’s “The Whistlers.”
In “The Whistlers,” he seems
acutely self-conscious about working
on a large canvas and aiming
for a wide international audience
for the fi rst time. But the fi lm might
work better as entertainment if its
narrative were easier to follow.
One sometimes feels that its editing
one another.”
The comedy ranges from visual
gags and wordplay and verbal dexterity
to some more anxiety-driven
moments. Sweeney observed that
his fi lm’s humor stems from “wanting
there to be enough story and
character for people who don’t fi nd
something funny to have something
to latch onto. I don’t consider
myself to be a comedy writer, so
I may be harsh about what I fi nd
funny, but I don’t limit myself to
one type of humor. Some jokes
are for me, and if other people like
them that’s great. This one joke
when Todd talks to Meg and Ryder,
and says, ‘My only two friends,’ is
a reference to the fact that in romcoms
you don’t see all the character’s
friends, usually just two.”
“Straight Up,” of course, plays
with issues of sexuality and sexual
identity as Todd questions who
and what he wants from a relationship.
The fi lmmaker appreciates
the identity politics in his fi lm and
how Todd assumes he’s gay “because
of his social conditioning” —
his mannerisms and interests convince
him he should be with men.
“The logline for the fi lms is, ‘A
gay twentysomething fi nds his
intellectual soulmate in a twentysomething
and structure are arbitrary,
with Porumboiu veering out of
control in his intentions. The fi rst
half hour holds out a great deal
of promise that peters out by the
end.
THE WHISTLERS| Directed by
actress,’” Sweeney said.
“But that’s reductive and sexuality
is a spectrum, and where he starts
is completely different than where
he ends up. People coded me as
gay before I knew I was gay myself.
I’ve talked with gay men who are
attracted to women, but they don’t
say that for fear of being ostracized
in the gay community. Gay is a political
word, but it can also be restricting.
The fi lm takes place is in
a post-heterosexist word, but that’s
not a world we live in.”
Given that the dramatic tension
in the fi lm is built on the possibility
of Todd and Rory ending up
together romantically as well as
companionably, Sweeney is cagey
about whether he wants viewers to
root for his protagonists to become
romantically involved.
“I always hope that viewers will
simultaneously root for them to be
together and that they fi nd other
people,” he demurred. “That’s
where the confl ict comes from. It’s
a messy area.”
STRAIGHT UP | Directed by
James Sweeney | Strand Releasing
| Opens Feb. 28 IFC Center, 323
Sixth Ave. at W. Third St.; ifccenter.
com
COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES/ VLAD CIOPLEA
Corneliu Porumboiu | In English
and Romanian, Spanish and the
whistling language El Silbo Gomera
with English subtitles | Magnolia
Pictures | Opens Feb. 28 | Film Forum,
209 W. Houston St.; fi lmforum.
org | Film at Lincoln Center, 144-165
W. 65th St.; fi lmlinc.org
GayCityNews.com | February 27 - March 11, 2020 25
/lmlinc.org
/GayCityNews.com
