Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (September 5, 2008)

IT'S BREAKFAST WITH SCOT, JA
AfterElton reader Jenny recently wrote in to tell me about a Swedish movie opening next week called Patrik 1,5. That title is probably going to be confusing for most folks outside of Europe as we would write it Patrik 1.5. Turns out in Europe they use a comma instead of a period when denoting decimal points. Where the rest of the world writes pi as 3.141256, in Europe it would be 3,141256.

Gustaf Skarsgård and Torkel Petersson

Anyway, whether it's a comma or a period, this movie is about a Swedish gay couple — Göran and Sven Skoogh — who set out to adopt a baby, but end up with a fifteen year old named Patrik when the decimal point in their application is inadvertently moved. So instead of getting a baby 1.5 years old, they get a teenager 15 years old.

So much for that fancy bassinet.

Thomas Ljungman as Patrik

Jenny tells me the flick is noteworthy for a number reasons. It's by well-known Swedish director Ella Lemhagen who has been very successful with romantic comedies and movies for children. And rather than marketing the movie as a gay movie, it's being sold simply as a romantic comedy for a genreal audience. Sounds nice, no?

Torkel Petersson plays Sven and Gustaf Skarsgård is Goran, both very well-known and respected actors. And if Gustaf's last name sounds familiar that's because his father is Stellan Skarsgård who just appeared in Mamma Mia and his brother is Alexander Skarsgård who recently made a splash in HBO's Generation Kill.

In the movie's trailer, the gay couple come across as typically suburban, refer to each other as husbands, and are generally affectionate with each other like any other couple.

I bet you're thinking what I'm thinking — it would be so much funnier if they were only pretending to be gay, right? Which, of course, is my bitter way of pointing out how far we are from seeing a movie like this in the U.S mainstream where we still get movies like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

It's probably not too hard to guess how the ending of this movie will play out, but that doesn't mean I'm not very eager to see it. Alas, we'll be lucky to catch it at some gay film fests with a possible DVD release down the road. Jenny is going to see the movie when it opens and will hopefully share her thoughts with us about it. Until then, I'll leave you with one of the sweeter pics of a gay a family I've seen in a while.

Next page! Israel's got hot gay characters, too!