Fire Island (2022)

It shouldn't be overlooked that Fire Island's existence is a massive win for the LGBTQ community as well as for the Asian community. Far too often queer characters (especially queer characters of color) are relegated to the snarky one note best friend character. To have a feature film written, directed, and starring queer people of color is incredible.

That being said I wish I enjoyed the movie more. The script is very quippy, but often it trades a quick laugh in favor of moments that actually round out the characters. Joel Kim Booster's "Noah" doesn't feel like a real person. I think the problem originates from the characters lack of world view. Sure he goes on rants about the evils of capitalism and body image and being a minority, but these monologues are often surface level talking points you might find on social media. Noah's struggles seem separate from him as a character, as if Joel Kim Booster did a google search for "problems gay men have". It's this lack of specificity across the board that makes everyone feel like caricatures and less like empathetic characters.

The script also has glaring plot holes in it. The group of gays make a huge fuss about losing the fire island home only for it to not matter in the end. Sure there's the age old "it's not the house it's the people" trope that gets shoehorned in to try to fix this plot hole, but the film leading up to that moment has nothing to do with characters learning that message. So the result is that it feels like sloppy writing or an artifact from a draft of the script that was intended to be a television pilot. Sloppy writing isn't new in queer cinema, but given the caliber of people attached to the movie, I was expecting something better. I feel like the movie as it's presented is a very solid first draft. Watching it I couldn't help but think "there's something here" but whatever it is gets bogged down by clunky writing and poor performances.

That brings me to the acting in this film. Let's be honest, Joel Kim Booster, as beautiful as he is, cannot carry a movie. He's consistently outshined by his costars Bowen Yang and Margaret Cho in almost every scene. His lack of charisma on screen paired with the superficial and shallow script makes for a movie that's incredibly difficult to watch in one sitting.

Overall Fire Island is a movie that tries to have its cake and eat it too (while ignoring the carbs so everyone's six packs are visible). The script lacks perspective beyond "everyone's gay" and any time a serious dialogue is started about a serious subject (race and body image come to mind) it's heavy handed while being simultaneously tone deaf. If you're a fan of Bowen Yang or Margaret Cho, the movie is fun for their scenes alone. The rest of the cast either hams it up like they're in a collegiate improv show or lacks any and all emotional depth. The result is a movie that is a decent freshman outing, but one that will be forgotten by this time next year.

As a gay man myself, I think it's incredibly important to be honest about the queer media we're given. I think more queer people should have the opportunity to tell their stories, but the fact alone that queer BIPOC people are making something doesn't innately make it good or enjoyable.

Fmovies: If you've just awakened from a 45+ year coma and want a view into your Grandfather's Fire Island, this is the movie for you. The characters are latter-day stereotypes, promiscuous and cringeworthy, missing only 70's porn moustaches. The five "boys," protected by damaged mother-hen lesbian Margaret Cho (was Rosie O'Donnell unavailable?), jiggle about wearing as little as possible, and speak the "F" and "S" words in almost every sentence, attempting to disguise a complete lack of a literate script. The romantic leads have no chemistry whatever, and the sex scenes are surprisingly graphic for a light-hearted rom-com. Not a word is mentioned about engagement or marriage because, after all, Gay people couldn't do those things 45 years ago. Ultimately, this unfunny little movie conveys the worst relics of pre-AIDS culture while pretending to be a contemporary Gay comedy. We've long since moved on from material like this, which is now just embarrassing.

BTW, any correlation between this film and Pride and Prejudice is laughable.

It's not the worst movie ever made. It's also not original in the slightest bit. I picked up all the "homages" and inspiration from other films fairly quickly without knowing a thing. I chuckled a few times but I don't see myself watching this ever again. Totally predictable and cliched with a running time about 40 minutes too long.

Fire Island fmovies. I've been waiting my whole life for a gay version of the classic "Pride and Prejudice". The story lends itself well to gay life and culture. So why was this movie such a let down? The rich friends are vapid, which is true to the story. However, the writing and dialog give these characters nothing else to work with. The main character and his best friends are also very one dimensional. The best part of the novel is the characters and this movie oversimplifies them to a point it is almost insulting.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." The opening words of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and this script is a gay spin off of that novel. This is a mostly Asian caste that goes to Fire Island for an annual week's vacation. Enroute they repeat one of the island's mantras, "No Fems, No Fats, No Asians", their group mostly fits that stereotype.

The script isn't perfect, but it's adequate. It's mostly drama school trained actors and it's funny. I enjoyed this more than "Queer as Folk" (2022). Not an exact match up of characters to the Jane Austen novel, but it's close enough.

This is like a bad episode of Saved By The Bell with an all gay cast. And Margaret Cho as the guidance counselor. The jokes are not funny, the acting is barely adequate with one actor racing through his lines like a jackhammer on steroids, and the script is amateurish (why are so many gay films so amateurish?) Save your time and give this garbage a pass....but if you REALLY want to know just how cringeworthy it is, just fast-forward to the last 2 minutes of the film. The "big climax" will make you laugh out loud it's so cliche. Or maybe it was meant to be mindboggingly silly, who knows when it comes to a mess like this?