GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

MAY 17, 1996

Evenings Out

It's My Party

Written and directed by Randal Kleiser

Reviewed by Doreen Cudnik

I'd been hearing a lot about It's My Party, the newest in a long line of gayor AIDS« themed films starring straight actors in gay roles (this time Gregory Harrison and Eric Roberts), but was beginning to wonder if the film would ever open in Ohio. Well, the wart is over, as the movie opened the weekend of May 10 at theaters throughout the state.

Aside from the experience of kissing Harrison, Roberts said he found no difterence between portraying a gay man and a straight man "[Nick is not any different because he's gay," the actor said.

Forbis part, Harnas.idh, cokie!B}} avoided gay stereotypes

"I don't believe you have to be gay to fealistically portray a man in love with another man," he said.

Being an openly gay writer and director, you would think that Randal Kleiser could have found at least two gay actors in Lus Angeles with Screen Actors Guild cards who would have jumped at the opportunity to play these roles.

Make sure you pack a whole lot of Kleenex prior to seeing this one, because Kleiser pulls. out all the stops, manipulating your emotions until you feel as if you're re-living your most excruciating break up. The story is a familiar--and painful---one for Kleiser, having been inspired by the life and death of his lover Harry Stein, who held a similar farewell gathering prior to his death.

The two main characters, Hollywood drrector Brandon Theis, (Harrison) and Nick Stark (Roberts), a succéssful Løs Angeles architect, are no strangers to the good life. The film opens with flashbacks of fabulous parties at their home in the Holly wood inlls (sign clearly visible in the background), ski trips to Lake Tahoe, and fantastic shots of their vacation in the sunny Greckisles Inone SUCI. N throws a surprise birthday party for his lover, and gigs Brandon a ther oughbred horses a present that would require most of us ordinary folks to second mortgage the of homestead to keep it. But clearly these boys have money and the film makes that apparent mevery shut.

When Nick finds out that what he thought was just a flu bug is in fact AIDS, his relationship with Brandon suffers under the strain. Nick deals with the news by throwing parties for his flamboyant friends when Brandon is away on business, while Brandon takas loset a young and presumably HIV negative assistant who helps him with each more than his blm project

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Nick's health deteriorates repulis na year later. hy rig mamuch less palatial heame than the one he shared with Brandon, he IS diagnosed with PML. (progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy), a brain disease that causes dementia and loss of vision in many people with AIDS. After a discussion with his doctor about how much time he has left before he “becomes a rutabaga.” Nick decides he will gather his friends and family together, have a big farewell party, and then end his life by taking a drug overdose. "I'm not gonna die blind, demented, and lying in my own shit," he says.

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Nick doles out comforting words of wes dom to everyone; he tells his friend I ina Olivia Newton-John), who is in the midst of a divorce, “Promise me you'll make the decisions that will make you happy." As he walks Charlene to her ear, he makes her swear that she will cut her hair, saying, “How's Mr. Right going to find you if he can't even

By

than the lives of pa mdkshian wine continuing devastation of the gas commus nity as a result of the i5 years of AIDS But Kleiser ties it up all nice and tidy in this neat Intle package of a film, leasing me wondering it anything as absand and complicated as dying in the pans of our life and at the pinnacle of your success could ever redly be resolved so neatly simply by throwing a great parts Honk al and de th Were that cass