The Broken Hearts Club

Every few years a seminal comedy about a group of friends comes along that captures the exact spirit of the times: Diner, The Big Chill and Swingers to name a few. This year the tradition continues with first time director Greg Berlanti's "The Broken Hearts Club," a slice-of life comedy with a twist - the guys are gay.

For promising West Hollywood photographer Dennis (Timothy Olyphant), his friends - exasperating as they are - are the ones who make single gay life bearable. He loves them but they drive him crazy. He hates them yet can't imagine life without them. He can't find a moment's peace from them - but they're always there when he needs them. As he prepares to celebrate his 28th birthday Dennis laments, "I can't decide if my friends are the best or worst thing that ever happened to me."

The Broken Hearts Club is a fresh, funny, real story about a group of gay men in Hollywood, their lovers and friends, and the often hilarious, occasionally poignant space in between-that is if they can get any space at all. According to writer/director Greg Berlanti, it's also about something everyone can relate to: "how screwy and dysfunctional friends can be, but also how wonderful."

Dennis' eclectic crew of pals is certainly living proof of Berlanti's statement: there's Benji (Zach Braff), the innocent youth with spiky hair and a penchant for gym bodies; Howie (Matt McGrath), the psychology grad student who thinks too much and lives too little and Cole (Dean Cain), the charismatic actor who accidentally steals everybody's guy. Rounding out the crew is Patrick (Ben Weber), the cynical quipster with a fragile heart, and Taylor (Billy Porter), the drama queen who until recently prided himself in his long-term relationship.

Providing sage advice-and, for several of the guys, steady work-is Jack (John Mahoney), beloved patriarch, softball coach and part-time drag performer whose restaurant is a social haven for the gang.

Into the mix steps Kevin (Andrew Keegan), Cole's latest abandoned conquest and a "newbie," a young man not quite out of the closet. Dennis takes it upon himself to show Kevin the ropes as a newly outed gay man.

With the notable exception of elder statesman Jack, their lives are in various states of disarray. Howie lacks the discipline to resist his sexy pot-smoking ex-boyfriend while Patrick's lesbian sister (Mary McCormack) has just solicited his sperm to father a child with her despotic girlfriend (Nia Long). Meanwhile, Benji can't introduce a new love interest to the group without somebody else moving in on him and Taylor gets bad news via phone from Hawaii-he's been dumped. Dennis simply worries he might never truly forge his own path or have a life outside this crazy, bickering bunch.

As they make their ways in the world with and without each other, they are suddenly faced with an unexpected tragedy. The group finds comfort the only way they ever have-together. "I can't remember when I first realized I was gay, only the first time I knew it was okay," says Kevin. "It was when I met these guys-my friends."

The directorial debut of Berlanti, who also wrote the screenplay, The Broken Hearts Club is produced by Mickey Liddell and Joseph Middleton. The creative team also includes co-producers Julie Plec and Sam Irvin, editor Todd Busch, line producer Connie Dolph and costume designer Mas Kondo.

Source : Obtained from www.thebrokenheartsclub.com

It's Agreed... We Love Broken Hearts 
James F. Mills reviews The Broken Hearts Club starring Dean Cain... 
by James F. Mills 

Coming out is easy! The hard part is getting a life afterwards. That’s the premise of The Broken Hearts Club, the new ensemble comedy about a group of twentysomething gay friends in West Hollywood. The romantic comedy opens Sept. 29 in New York and Los Angeles and expands across the nation in October. 

Buzz for the film is high thanks to a cover story in The Advocate earlier this summer featuring stars Dean Cain and Timothy Olyphant. Word-of-mouth is also high thanks to a screening as the closing-night film at Outfest, Los Angeles’s gay and lesbian film festival. 

Broken Hearts Club isn’t your standard gay films. It’s not about AIDS or coming out or even finding true love. It’s about a group of friends facing turning points in their lives. “There’s no other gay film like it,” said writer-director Greg Berlanti during a recent interview at a Beverly Hills hotel. “It’s a group of people coming of age, figuring out who they are, what’s important to them, where does love fit in . . . it’s like a gay Diner.” 

Lead character has fun
Rising star Olyphant, best know for his roles as the drug dealer in Go and the serial killer in Scream 2, provides the film’s moral center playing Dennis, a laid back, directionless, would-be photographer who celebrates his 28th birthday as the film begins. Olyphant was the first person cast. Once he was attached, “it gave the project more credence and credibility,” Berlanti commented. 

Impressed with the script, Olyphant offered to play any of three roles. Berlanti selected him for Dennis because he possesses the “dry wit” which is crucial for the character. The 32-year-old Olyphant was thrilled to get Dennis, a role he thinks is unusually strong for a lead character. “I tend to think that lead characters are the most boring people in the movie,” he said. “But [Dennis] had a great deal of range and fun.” 

Getting Superman
Cain, the former TV Superman, plays struggling actor Cole, a straight-acting Casanova whom all the other characters envy. Studio executives were reluctant to cast Cain, thinking of him as a TV actor rather than a features actor, but Berlanti pushed for him. Once the execs saw the dailies of Cain’s work, they told Berlanti he’d made the right choice. “Dean was perfect for Cole,” Berlanti said. “He has Cole’s charisma. He can smile and be a villain and you still like him.” 

A fatherly voice 
John Mahoney, best know for TV’s “Fraiser,” offers a fatherly voice as Jack, who coaches the softball team all the characters play on. Berlanti initially had trouble finding the older character’s voice, so wrote the lines envisioning Marty Crane speaking them. When casting began, he sent Mahoney a script with a note explaining he was the one actor who he had written a part for. “He jumped on board right away,” the 28-year-old Berlanti recalled. 

Other characters
The rest of the characters offer a wide range of personalities very familiar within the gay community. Zach Braff plays the club hopping Benji, while Matt McGrath plays the codependent/semi-neurotic Howie who is on-again, off-again with the pot-smoking Marshall, played by Justin Theroux. Billy Porter plays the flamboyant Taylor who was recently dumped, while Ben Weber is the insecure Patrick who thinks he’s not attractive enough. 

No film about twentysomething gays would be complete without a just-out-of-the-closet character. Andrew Keegan, know for roles on TV’s “Party of Five” and “Seventh Heaven,” plays the “newbie” Kevin, who becomes involved with several of the friends. Keegan, who is dating country music singer LeAnn Rimes in real life, reports Berlanti worked closely with him getting the “right amount of innocence” for the character. 

Lip to lip
While none of the actors had qualms about playing gay characters, there was some awkwardness in the kissing scenes. Keegan, who locks lips with Cain, said he was taken aback kissing someone who’s so much larger physically than he is. However, Keegan quickly added that Cain was “a good kisser.” Olyphant said he found it strange to be kissing someone who had just shaved an hour earlier but tried not to sweat it. “When it comes down to it, it’s just pretty painless,” Olyphant said. “Lips are lips are lips.” 

Notions of masculinity
Olyphant, who is straight and has been married to his college sweetheart, Alexis, for the last nine years, found himself reexamining ideas about masculinity after this flick. “Straight guys spend a lot of time making sure they appear straight,” said Olyphant, a University of Southern California graduate. “It’s just sort of an exhausting parade they kind of put on. It’s such an uninteresting, time-consuming pursuit.” 

Close cast
Over the 20-day shoot in and around Los Angeles last November, the cast grew quite close and still keep in touch. Olyphant reports he and Cain both play on a recreational basketball team now. He laughed when he realized that two of the starting five players on that team had appeared on the cover of The Advocate. 

Audience members will likely be asking where they can get a group of friends like the ones portrayed in this film. When pressed for a location to meet such a supportive, caring and enjoyable bunch of people, Berlanti admitted the film is a bit of a fantasy. “I think that there’s a little bit of wish fulfillment in the writing of this. You hope that if you create a group of friends like this on film and in stories . . . people will begin to see themselves this way and maybe acknowledge the importance of that.” 

Broken Hearts Club writer-director Greg Berlanti has been doing lots of ground breaking in the past couple of years. His new ensemble comedy is breaking ground by being the first ensemble comedy where all the lead characters are gay since 1970s The Boys in the Band. Then in his other job, as a writer for the teen soap opera “Dawson’s Creek,” he wrote the ground-breaking episodes where the Jack character came out of the closet. 

“I’ve sort of been of a hesitant leader about writing about this sort of stuff and yet I end up writing about it all the time,” laughed the 5’ 8”, brown-haired Berlanti. “I was sort of resistant in every step of the way about pigeonholing myself [in writing about gay topics] and yet the opportunities come up and they just sort of feel like the right thing to do.” 

Hollywood certainly seems to think he has the right stuff, as well as the write stuff. Entertainment Weekly named the 28-year-old Berlanti to its annual “It List” this summer, labeling him an “It Upstart.” Daily Variety named him as one of “Ten to Watch,” a short list of up-and-coming directors, while Fade In magazine included him its “Top 100 People in Hollywood.” 

His second script, Her Leading Man, was a hot commodity in Hollywood. It ultimately landed at Universal Pictures, where it will be directed by his mentor Kevin Williamson, who created “Dawson’s Creek.” 

Coming out
Although he first knew he was gay at age 14, Berlanti didn’t come out of the closet until 1995, when he was 23 years old. He did have several clandestine relationships with other men while a student enrolled in Northwestern University’s playwriting program. However, he remained deeply closeted because, “I didn’t know why it was that I should want to be gay,” he said. “If I had seen a film like [Broken Hearts Club], maybe I would have been more willing to come out of the closet sooner.” 

After graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles but remained closeted. He was at the “lowest of the low,” when a fraternity brother, who was also in LA, invited him to a party. “He said ‘I want to take you to this party and there’ll be this group of guys who I think are a lot like you and me’ That was his way of coming out to me and saying he thought I was gay too.” 

Lifelines and friendships
The party became Berlanti’s lifeline. He was quickly was accepted into the group and soon found that having openly gay friends gave him a reason to come out. That group of friends is the group upon which he based the characters in Broken Hearts Club. 

Berlanti says that the neurotic Howie character is the most autobiographical of the bunch. “I had a boyfriend at the time [that he wrote the screenplay] and we were on again off again all the time.” However, looking back at the film today, the Rye, NY native reports he finds elements of himself in both the newly out Kevin character and the searching-for-a-purpose character of Dennis. “I was right between my Kevin phase and my Dennis phase when I wrote the movie.” 

Dawson’s Creek
Based on the strength of his Broken Hearts Club script, Berlanti landed a job writing for “Dawson’s Creek.” He joined the show during its second season first penning the “All-Nighter” episode where the gang gets into various mischief while staying up all night studying for a test. Soon after that, Berlanti penned the two-parter where the Jack character came out of the closet. 

Berlanti admits that the antagonistic relationship between Jack and his father is based upon his relationship with his own father, who did not take well to the idea of having a gay son. Their relationship has improved dramatically in the ensuing five years since he came out. “After the screening at Sundance [Film Festival in Utah where Broken Hearts Club has its world premier in January 2000], [my dad] came up crying and was so proud. Now he’s telling all his friends about the movie his son directed.” 

Reluctant director
Berlanti initially had no interest in directing movies, wanting instead to concentrate on his writing. However, producer Mickey Liddell urged him to direct in order to be keep the vision of the film he had written. Liddell believed bringing in someone else to direct such a personal film “would probably tear the film apart rather that bolster it,” said Berlanti, who named Cinema Paradiso as his all-time favorite movie. 

Future offerings
Next up, Berlanti directs Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn, written by Ryan Murphy who created the TV series “Popular.” “It’s a romantic comedy about a news anchor in LA who gets left at the alter and tries to figure out why she was left. She befriends the best man who she formerly hated. The only thing they have in common is Audrey Hepburn movies.” 

In the meantime, he’s busy helming the boat at “Dawson’s Creek,” where he is now headwriter. Under his guidance, will Jack find love this season? “I sure hope so,” he says cautiously. “We have to navigate these storylines with the proper authorities [at the network] who have to approve them. I think that Jack deserves to find love at this point.” 

Visit the web site: www.thebrokenheartsclub.com

Source : Obtained from Gaywired.Com