Fixing Frank, directed by Michael Selditch, is based on a stageplay by Ken Hanes in which Frank Johnston (played by Andrew Elvis Miller) gets in the middle of a conflict between two psychologists, Dr. Arthur Apsey (played by Dan Butler) and Dr. Jonathan Baldwin (played by Paul Provenza). The conflict is portrayed as a debate over the possibility of changing a person's sexual orientation within the licensing requirements of clinical psychology. When the film begins, Frank and Jonathan greet each other as a seemingly well-adjusted gay couple who have lived together for more than six years. A freelance journalist, Frank has decided to pretend to be a confused gay, seeking the services of Dr. Apsey, who counsels those who want to shed their gay tendencies. By going undercover, Frank hopes to obtain information that will enable his partner to file a complaint with the state board to revoke Dr. Apsey's license. Frank must lie, and he is not a good liar, so he botches the assignment and ultimately blows his cover. Nevertheless, he persists in seeing Dr. Apsey, who seizes on the opportunity to argue his case, knowing that Frank is Dr. Baldwin's partner. The debate continues when Frank goes home and recounts what he hears to his lover, namely, that Dr. Apsey uses logic rather than aversion therapy or Christian brainwashing to assist those who are confused to clarify their thinking about sexuality. One element in the soap opera is that several of Dr. Apsey's patients have been seeking to undo the damage of his counseling through the services of Dr. Baldwin. Since the arguments become existential, childhood traumas are relived. Dr. Apsey confesses that he developed a practice to enable gays to become straight after his younger brother became unable to cope with his gay tendencies and committed suicide. Dr. Baldwin admits that he was a teenage bully who once beat up a gay guy, had profound regrets, turned gay, and pursued a career in clinical psychology (though he is clearly a bully today in his relationship with Frank and Dr. Apsey). Leather-jacketed but sensitive Frank was verbally abused by his parents for effeminate tendencies, escaped to New York, found comfort in Jonathan's arms, moved into his apartment, and yet after six years still does not have his name on the apartment mailbox. What emerges from the debate and its subtexts is that Frank realizes that he is being so manipulated by his partner that he has lost his free will. Accordingly, he has sex with a woman and moves out, though later he tries to get back in Jonathan's good graces. During much of the movie, there are flashforwards to testimony by all three at a license revocation hearing. The main question posed, whether either of the two should continue to have a license to practice, is answered in the film but will be continued by filmviewers as they leave Fixing Frank. In other words, Fixing Frank poses the familiar conundrum whether nature or nurture is responsible for sexual tendencies. The dichotomous thinking in the film eloquently portrays the narrow perspective that pervades current American culture, wherein conflict is viewed as involving absolute good versus absolute evil in which a winner will use any possible sleazy tactics to gain the perverse satisfaction of prevailing over a loser. Bisexuality is never advanced as an option in the United States, whereas the opposite is the case in recent European films, most recently Bulgarian Lovers (2004), which explore the polymorphous dimensions of sexuality. MH
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