BREAKFAST WITH SCOT
Directed by Laurie Lynd
Produced by Paul Brown
Written by Sean Reycraft, based on the novel by Michael Downing
Released by Regent Releasing/Here! Film
Canada. 95 min. Rated PG-13
With Tom Cavanagh, Ben Shenkman & Noah Bernett
 

Ice hockey is far from the most popular sport in the world, yet there seems to be an awful lot of hockey movies—Miracle; Mystery, Alaska; The Mighty Ducks; Youngblood; and, of course, Slap Shot. Now comes Breakfast with Scot, which drew notice last year for receiving permission from the National Hockey League and the Toronto Maple Leafs to use team and league logos in the film. Granting the rights to the film was an extraordinary move by the NHL because one of the characters seen in a Maple Leafs uniform is gay.

Tom Cavanagh plays Eric McNally, a retired hockey player who now works in TV sports. He’s in a long-term relationship with Sam (Ben Shenkman), a lawyer, but he keeps that part of his life under wraps, fearing how it would affect his image and career. So far, it’s been easy enough to keep the secret—Eric seems like any other straight ex-jock who’s more comfortable sitting in front of the TV drinking beer and watching a game than going to the opera or ballet.

Eric and Sam’s carefully compartmentalized life is disrupted when they’re given temporary custody of Scot, the son of Sam’s brother’s ex-girlfriend. They fumble with sudden parenthood, and the arrangement is made worse by Scot’s behavior. He wears scarves, scented hand cream, jewelry, and when given the chance, make up—he doesn’t even know who Wayne Gretzky is! A horrified Eric sees in the young boy everything he has tried to disassociate from himself—sure, he’s gay, but he’s not gay. But as Eric tries to force Scot into the mold of how he believes a real boy should behave and sees the consequences, he begins to wonder what he has sacrificed in himself by so completely separating himself from one part of his identity.

Director Laurie Lynd is sincere in her approach to the subject matter and the conflicts felt by the characters, but the film is undermined at times by a number of things. The screenplay veers into sitcom territory with the kind of zingy one-liners that cry out for a laugh track. The film wraps up in the kind of holiday scene that you would expect to find in a Lifetime movie. And the score can be intrusive, featuring heavy, pounding disco. Okay, we get it—disco=gay. That one’s gotten old.

The performances balance the film’s occasional awkwardness, though. Veteran TV actor Cavanagh sometimes slips into the sitcom moments the script gives him, but more often than not he finds the emotions his character has tried to keep buried. The always wonderful Shenkman is never less than a complete, real person who keeps things from sliding into an afterschool special. Noah Bernett, as Scot, at first comes off a little like a slick, too-professional kid actor, but that may be the material. His performance grows during the film, and he finds his moments, too. Overall, Breakfast with Scot is an admirable attempt to deal with issues which, while they may have been comfortably addressed in parts of the world, remain untouchable in the locker room. Kirsten Anderson
October 10, 2008