Romancing the top jock

Get Real

Directed by Simon Shore Cedar Lee Theatre Drexel Theatre

Reviewed by Mark J. Huisman

From its very opening sequence, Get Real wears its soulful eclecticism on every frame, like a sly smile shot across the room to the object of one's affection.

Steven Carter (Ben Silverstone), trimly dressed in his school uniform, sits on a park bench, looking about nervously. But when a thirty-something man emerges from a cinder-block building behind Steven and approaches the wiry teen to chat him up, our gaydar is abuzz. Like all queers raised in places so far away from the disco lights that cruising was defined by the public space in which it occurred― here a "cottage," as the Brits call public toilets-Steven is overjoyed at this furtive contact.

But when he arrives home, the real world crashes in. His parents have found out he's been skipping study hall and demand an explanation.

"I had a block," says Steven in a not entirely convincing fashion. "So I went to the park to get unblocked."

The next morning, his friend Linda (Charlotte Brittain) insists the feelings are probably the kind of phase some people go through, a thought Steven finds incredulous. "For eleven years?” he shrieks.

Steven's life looks to change when, on another visit to the cottage, he runs into John Dixon (Brad Gorton), a handsome athlete at Steven's school. Flustered, the boys converse awkwardly:

"Fag?" Johnny asks, using a British slang word for cigarette.

"Sorry?" Steven blurts out.

"Forget it. I don't know what came over me," says Johnny.

Steven joins his laughter: "I didn't know it was you."

Johnny: "Let's put it out of our minds." Moments later, the boys are at Steven's house, tumbling on the bed. Thus begins another tale of star-crossed lovers, albeit queer ones this time.

Initially, Steven agrees to keep their relationship secret. Johnny, the son of country-club-set parents whose sprawling home has a two-car garage and swimming

pool, isn't about to give up his ladies' man reputation or his rank among the popular clique.

Steven goes along until it becomes so unbearable he confides in Linda and, eventually, even in Jessica, the girl who has a crush on him. But sharing secrets doesn't necessarily make things any better either, as rumors about the boys start to fly around the school, leading to a series of arguments between Steven and Johnny, who will not have it.

One almost wishesalmost, but not quitethat he and Linda could

get together: Kids born to this duo would terrorize

the heterosexual planet.

"If you tell anyone, it's off," Johnny says vehemently.

"So it's on, then," Steven asks, his brow knitted in pain.

"Yeah, it's definitely on," comes Johnny's answer. "But if you tell anyone, it's off."

This pretty much describes the affairon, off, off, on, on, off, off. And this constantly shifting landscape is buttressed with a refreshingly restrained soundtrack, which occasionally features some wisely chosen pop tune. (Listen especially for "You Are So Beautiful To Me” during the prom sequence, and see if you can tell where Johnny and Steven's affections really lie.)

Complicating matters even further, Steven is arrested by police in the woods where he and Johnny meet one afternoon, infuriating his father, who accuses him of drug use. Shortly after, Steven authors an anonymous essay (which gives rise to the film's title) about the loneliness and pain of being gay. When the headmaster refuses to allow the school paper to print the essay, the students cry censorship and,

June 25, 1999

unknowingly but eagerly, take up Steven's

cause.

Brittain fairly steals her every scene in a charming, gregarious screen debut. From the disarming subplot about her randy driving instructor to the moment she tells off a schoolmate who jokes about her outsize personality with the emphasis on sizeLinda is not someone with whom to trifle.

Sympathetic and charismatic at once, Silverstone has the same vise-grip presence on every frame here that he possessed as Humbert Humbert in Adrian Lyne's recent version of Lolita. While in many actors of Silverstone's age there is fragility tinged with a spine of steel, it's the opposite in him-a self-confident presence tinged by vulnerability. One almost wishes-almost, but not quite that he and Linda could get together: Kids born to this duo would terrorize the heterosexual planet.

Gorton, however, is every bit as maddening an actor as Johnny is a character. Gorton's reliance on repetition-of body language, gesture, glance and vocal inflection-were perhaps intended to evidence Johnny's arrested emotional and psychic state, but they often invaded the performance with uncomfortable selfconsciousness. But in other momentslike one in which Johnny arrives at Steven's house after the prom and almost sobs, "Help me. I'm scared."-evidence Gorton's genuine ability to get into Johnny's confused skin. In such moments, Gorton rates with the rest of the cast but, in too many others, he barely registers.

But the film's sensational conclusion registers indeed. At a crowded school awards ceremony, Steven comes out, only to find himself literally alone, standing on that stage with the very isolation he feels inside. From this wrenching moment, Shore makes an amazingly effective, smoothly executed turn leading not to an all's-well-that-ends-well group hug, but to something infinitely more real. Young Steven Carter's queer journey is just beginning, but he's certainly not going to face it alone.

Get Real opens on June 25 at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland, and July 16 at the Drexel Theatre in Columbus. ♡

Mark J. Huisman is a Chronicle contributing writer living in New York City.

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Ben Silverstone as Sleven, and Charlotte Brittain as Linda,