THE TRIP
Directed by: Miles Swain.
Produced by: Houston King & Swain.
Written by: Swain.
Director of Photography: Charles L. Barbee & Scott Kevan.
Edited by: Carlo Gustaff.
Music by: Steven Chesne.
Released by: TLA Releasing.
Country of Origin: USA. 95 min. Not rated.
With: Larry Sullivan, Steve Braun, Alexis Arquette, Sirena Irwin & Jill St. John.

A solid and earnest cast make this gay indie melodrama stand out from similar films (such as Playing Mona Lisa or I Think I Do ). Beginning in the heady days of gay liberation in the 1970s, Alan and Tommy (played by Sullivan & Braun, respectively, a young Kyle MacLaghlan and Brad Pitt) meet at a party thrown by wealthy and closeted Peter. They are instantly smitten with each other, even though Alan has a fiancé, the flighty Beverly (Irwin), and he is a conservative Republican writing an anti-gay diatribe, soon to be the nation’s number one hate book. (Peter is as two dimensional a villain as gay men are sometimes portrayed in less-than-sensitive movies.) The zippy one liners fly fast and furious. Even when the film’s tone takes a dark turn as it moves into the 1980s, its sense of humor is thankfully never lost. Director/writer Swain has a stronger sense of comedy than drama. And Jill St. John, as Alan’s mother, reveals a surprising comedic side as she literally steals her scenes plundering Peter’s mansion. Although Tommy dons one too many frightwigs as the eras change and sometimes the chronology is a bit off (Beverly is hip to exercise home video several years before the home video explosion), the pace never slackens and The Trip remains entertaining throughout even as it veers towards histrionics. KT
May 30, 2003