Straight Up

"Straight Up" is a simply fantastic first feature from triple threat writer, director, and star James Sweeney. He stars as a sexually confused man who befriends an equally confused woman. However, there is nothing confusing about the chemistry between Sweeney and breakout star Katie Findlay. Their rapid-fire delivery is akin to Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in "It Happened One Night," if Clark Gable happened to be gay. Sweeney's script is just so incredibly witty, but also has a great deal of heart. There is a scene (no spoilers) where he and Findlay both break down together that had me in tears. Sweeney plays a difficult character that in another actor's hands could be insufferable. But he manages to be effortlessly likable. The same goes for Findlay. The rest of the cast is aces as well, with James Scully as his gay best friend who has the hots for him and Tracie Thoms as his long-suffering therapist as standouts. This was one of the great surprises of 2020. A screwball comedy at a time when it's needed more than ever. It will be exciting to see what Sweeney does next. It's a major compliment that he reminds me of the great Josh Thomas, who has two amazing TV shows under his belt ("Please Like Me" and "Everything's Gonna Be Okay"). But his voice is all his own. Great, great film available on Netflix now.

Living our lives as we were meant to is sometimes challenging in unusual ways. So it is for a loquacious, neurotic gay man who's uncomfortable with what comes with the lifestyle, prompting him to believe that he may be latent heterosexual, a notion that launches him into a dating experiment with a woman who mirrors many of his quirky traits. The question thus becomes, will this relationship work? Such is the premise of writer-actor-director James Sweeney's modern-day throwback to the rapid-fire screwball comedies of the past. While it's a little hard to fathom that any real life individual could flawlessly deliver unrehearsed, content-rich, machine gun-paced lines with the ease that these protagonists do, their dialogue is nevertheless smartly peppered with witty, often-hilarious observations (as well as a few one-liners that don't stick their landings), making for generally good fun under highly unexpected situations. The pacing moves so quickly that viewers may be left a little exhausted by film's end, but, in light of the funny yet thoughtful message this release serves up about being oneself, that's easily overlooked. A generally inoffensive offering that will definitely tickle one's funny bone in big ways more than a few times.