JEFFREY
|
Director: Christopher Ashley Time: 98 min Country: USA Date: 1995 |
Surprisingly
lighthearted and witty, Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey (based on his off-Broadway
play) was one of the first films to tackle the AIDS crisis without patting
itself on the back or offering everything up in a sobering movie-of-the-week
scenario. The titular Jeffrey (Steven Weber) is a happy-go-lucky gay man who
suddenly comes face to face with the fact that AIDS has turned sex into
something "radioactive." Paranoid in the extreme, he vows to become
celibate--at just about the same time that hunky Steve (The Pretender's
Michael T. Weiss) saunters into his life, eyes twinkling and hormones
raging. The only problem is that Steve, for all his muscles and charm, is
HIV-positive, thus setting Jeffrey's deepest fears into motion. When it was
written in 1995, Jeffrey struck a nerve in mining the fear that a number
of gay men felt during the height of the AIDS crisis. Even just a few years
later, though, Jeffrey's paranoia (what, he's never heard of condoms?) seems
dated, and his behavior more self-damaging than self-aware--basically, he needs
a slap upside the head as opposed to therapy. Still, Rudnick (who went on to pen
the more mainstream In and Out) is never one to pass up a witty one-liner
or an opportunity to poke fun at anyone, and Jeffrey now stands as a
hilarious, sometimes poignant portrait of gay single life and the perils of
dating in a paranoid time. Weber's Jeffrey is simultaneously open to the
possibilities of life and fearful to embrace them, and Weiss is, well...
gorgeous and funny and sexy beyond belief. Still, it's Patrick Stewart, as
Jeffrey's interior decorator best friend, who effortlessly steals the film with
his cutting wit; in his mouth, Rudnick's lines are priceless gems. With a host
of amazing cameos, including Sigourney Weaver as a conceited New Age maven,
Kathy Najimy as her sad-sack follower, Christine Baranski as a high-society
hostess for a roundup-themed charity dinner, and a top-form Nathan Lane as a gay
priest who seems to have discovered the meaning of life—literally