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Chester's gay/Jewish character Adam, as he has written it for himself, displays a kind of passive, blithe spirit approach to existence that is part Doris Day, part Woody Allen, and even part Charlie Chaplin. Ever bemused and helpless in the face of life's inane flux, Adam is a gentle gay guy who reacts more than he acts. He sighs a lot. His world keeps dealing him a lousy hand, and we sympathize with him.

To quote Chester, “It's hard enough to make love work when the world is on your side, but what if it's not?” In their attempts to come together, Adam and Steve valiantly tackle both wacky outside adversaries and inner oddball neuroses.

Other supporting characters in this film are less well realized. Kattan and Posey, although no strangers to zany comedy, appear somewhat subdued and unfocused in acting out the hetero comic love subplot they've been given.

Adam's “typically weird” Long Island Jewish family and Steve's “typically weird” born-again Christian fundamentalist parents all just seem weird for weird's sake. As comic relief their effect on the film's plot seems weak and somewhat forced. They do symbolize the whole Christian conservative right vs. Jewish liberal left issue for Adam and Steve. Yet as played for laughs this kind of thing has all been done before.

As with many “gay” comedies (La Cage aux Folles, Hairspray), Adam & Steve is a film that very, very much wants to be an old time, Broadway stage musical. It already contains two huge, (rather over-baked) dance extravaganzas, a happy ending with a big traditional wedding and a plot entirely laid out in stock, theater-tableau fashion.

As in chestnuts like Hello Dolly and My Fair Lady, each scene in A&S is constructed like a perfect “set-up” to break into song. There are the tried and true musical moment categories like “the first date”, “why can't I find love”, “how-to-win-the-man”, “meet-the-parents, “boy-meets-boy”, “at-the-altar-wedding finale”, etc.

In watching the film, one wonders why someone doesn't simply burst into a show tune once every five minutes. In fact, at one point someone actually does. In trying to win Adam back after a typical “boy-loses-boy” lover's quarrel, Steve unexpectedly breaks into (and I kid you not) a tenderly crooned apology “I Must Have Done Something Good” from The Sound of Music.

There is much about the look, style, pace and humor of Adam & Steve that makes it appear older than its purported 2005 setting. This film would more comfortably and realistically be said to occur in the 1990s.

Perhaps its original screenplay was written years ago, and then updated to present time. Viewers will note how much of Adam & Steve comes off as late 80s/early 90s Jeffrey and Roseanne in spirit. Much of its approaches to situational comedy, social issues and “out” gay sensibilities have been surpassed in the popular gay zeitgeist by the more modern Will and Grace and Ellen TV sitcoms.

Adam & Steve addresses the sting of homophobia in a quaint, vaudevillian way. Throughout the film, anti-gay epitaphs are hurled at the couple from an unseen character, as a kind of “running gag” throughout the movie. The perpetrator is only revealed at the film's end, where he gets pulled onscreen and forced to publicly apologize.

Perhaps trying to capitalize on the success of mega gay hit Brokeback Mountain, more and more promotional ads for Adam and Steve feature a shot of its two leads in cowboy outfits. Truth be told, this misrepresents the film. The boyfriends in A&S resemble the lovers in Brokeback only in a way that perhaps Jack of Will and Grace might envision. In two short scenes the very urban Adam and Steve dress western style to attend Steve's regular country two-step dance night.

Rounding out the notables in the A & S cast are film are TV/film veterans Julie Haggerty as Adam's mom and Sally Kirkland (an ordained minister in real life) as “Mary” the minister who “marries” the lovers in the film's traditional family values finale. Drag star Jackie Beat plays her self in a cameo appearance.

Actor/director Craig Chester won an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his role in the drama Swoon and has appeared in many films including Grief, Frisk, I Shot Andy Warhol and Kiss me, Guido. He has also appeared on Sex and the City, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and in the ABC movie Out of Darkness with Diana Ross. St. Martin 's Press published his memoir, Why The Long Face? The Adventures Of A Truly Independent Actor, in January 2003.

Adam & Steve opens March 31 in selected theaters across the U.S.

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