Finding love in en forgotten hometown

Arye Gross, left, and Tim DeKay.

September 14, 2001

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

11

Big Eden

Directed by Thomas Bezucha Jour de Fete Films

by Anthony Glassman

The world of entertainment writing is filled with false analogies. X movie is just like Y movie, only with Z twist. Only X is seldom even similar to Y, with or without Z.

Such was the case with Big Eden, which has been referred to as a gay Northern Expo-

sure.

Aside, of course, from the difference in locales-Exposure was set in Alaska, while Big Eden is a town in Montana-there are the completely disparate premises. In the Northern Exposure TV show, Dr. Rob Morrow is sent to a small Alaska town to work and thus repay his medical school student loans. He falls into a love/hate relationship with a feisty female pilot. It was cute when it started, but once Morrow left, it went to hell in a handbasket faster than Speedy Gonzales on crystal meth.

Big Eden, on the other hand, is a two-hour film, and doesn't have the time to get bad. It starts interesting, is filled with likable characters and good writing, blessed with more than adequate direction, and tells an engaging story.

The film is a tale of returning home and finding love that was there, but unnoticed. Henry Hart (Arye Gross) is a gay New York artist, standing on the brink of success with the opening of his first major show just days away. Then his grandfather (George Coe) has a stroke while replacing shingles on a neighbor's roof and winds up in the hospital. Hart rushes back to Big Eden, his hometown, to look after the irascible old codger.

Hart is not exactly out in this tiny town in the land of the Unabomber, but it seems that pretty much every schoolmarm and cowboy knows what's what and who's who.

Of course, in the land of movies, caring for a semi-invalid grandfather recovering from a stroke is not nearly enough, so enter the romantic interests. Tim DeKay plays a former high-school flame who freaked out and got married, to Hart's chagrin, and Eric Schweig plays Pike Dexter-who has the coolest and most memorable name in the film. Pike is the shy, hulking Native American owner of the town's general store who apparently has had the hots for young Mr. Hart since high school. It is the juxtaposition of these two relationships, between Henry and Dean (the high

school sweetheart) and between Henry and Dexter, that gives the film its great poignancy. The audience sees these fledgling relationships blossom.

It's been years since Henry and Dean have seen each other; Dean is now divorced, with two sons, and wants to start afresh with Henry. Audience-as-voyeur witnesses the rekindling of their friendship, and then romance, along with the terrible turbulence brought about by the emotional baggage remaining from their previous relationship.

The viewers also see the almost agoraphobic Dexter slowly emerge from his shell, and witness his near-painful attraction to Henry, who at first is clueless. He eventually catches on, but it might be too late, since between Dean and a possible return to New York, nothing in Henry's life is certain.

Louise Fletcher, as schoolmarm Grace Cornwell, is the linchpin around which the rest of the film seems to revolve. It's nice to

see that an actress who first made her mark with an Oscar-winning performance 25 years ago still filling the screen in incredible roles with polish and panache. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as Nurse Ratched, she was a pretty horrible person, a role she revisited in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

In Big Eden, however, we see a softer side of Fletcher, who seems almost Madonnalike (the religious figure, not the singer). Her ability to keep those around her safe and secure is almost mystical, as is her seeming omniscience.

Big Eden won the audience choice award at the Cleveland International Film Festival last spring, significant in itself for being one of a handful of gay films in a large festival. It deserved it, and now that its theatrical run is starting September 14, it deserves another look from those who saw it earlier. For those who didn't have the chance to catch it, go see it. It is worth the wait. ✓

* Eric Schweig