Review of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"

So what else happens? (Plot spoilers, as such, ahead.) There's a running gag about how everyone assumes Chuck is the “woman” in the relationship, but the joke is Chuck's peevishness about this and not about the fact that actual gay relationships, for the most part, don't have a “man” and a “woman” in them, and that only the least enlightened straight people still think they do.

Another recurring joke revolves around Larry's son, who wears Flashdance sweats, does the splits, uses his sister's E-Z-Bake Oven, and loves musical theater. While the script is generally sympathetic to the kid, the obviousness with which he's presented elevates the writers of Ugly Betty to Molière-like heights by comparison.

Oh, and let's not forget Ving Rhames, who plays a new addition to the firehouse. At first, he's silent and scary, with a “187” tattoo and a reputation as an unhinged loose cannon. But after word gets out about Chuck and Larry's “relationship,” Rhames's character finds the courage to come out. The second that happens, Rhames suddenly goes from scary tough guy to channeling the drag queen he played in Lifetime movie Holiday Heart, complete with a naked rendition of “I'm Every Woman” in the communal shower room. (Give me strength.)

If there's anything that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry can't be faulted on, it's good intentions. Sandler has presented positive gay characters in the past, and I'm sure he thinks that audiences will follow Chuck's arc from homophobe to Friend of Gays Everywhere. In doing so, however, the script (which somehow featured a rewrite by the very talented Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, although you'd never know it) makes all the discrimination so obvious and in-your-face that it's like the cast of Crash chasing Little Eliza across the ice. (A fellow dad at Larry's kids' school tells Larry he's no longer needed as a Little League coach or Boy Scout troop leader; Chuck's fellow firemen won't play basketball with him anymore because they think he'll try to cop a feel. Mind you, this movie is set in New York City.)

It all culminates with a speech about respect and understanding from Aykroyd, of all people (but only after he gets to call Rudy Giuliani a “great mayor”), but the motives of the speech, and of the movie itself, are undercut by a climactic moment in which Chuck and Larry are supposed to kiss but (spoiler alert!) they don't. So Sandler can talk the “hey, kids, let's stop using the word ‘faggot'” talk all he wants, but if he can't handle that tiny amount of walking the walk, then forget it.

With smarter writing and directing, Chuck and Larry could have gone further out on a limb with its ideas and gotten its points across, while being interesting and provocative. Kevin Smith hardly played it safe with his landmark Chasing Amy (1997) – another movie about a straight guy learning a thing or two about queer life – and while he offended some viewers with his lesbian-falls-for-breeder storyline, he made a movie that says something and is clever and entertaining. Chuck and Larry gets its message across, but it's ultimately forgettable crap.

Subtlety and intelligence are rarely the hallmark of Hollywood movies, so it's certainly likely that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry will both make money and maybe even win a few straight hearts and minds along the way. Bully for it if it does. But movies that are this stupid about gay life, made by straight people, exist as object lessons of why it's so very important that queer artists tell our own stories from our own point of view. Because if we leave it to the heterosexuals, obviously, they're going to get it all wrong. Even if they, and some straight viewers, learn along the way.

Alonso Duralde is the author of 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men. Find him at www.alonsoduralde.com.