Review: "Mr. Right" Doesn't Get Too Much Wrong

James Lance as Harry

At the beginning of Mr. Right, a world premiere movie airing this Sunday as part of Logo’s Sunday night Fall Film Festival, Louise has just one small request of her video dating service:

That her next date not be gay!

Unfortunately, she’s drawn to gay men and that isn't especially helpful when trying to date. All of Louise's close friends are gay, and soon we meet them: Harry, who hates his job as a TV producer and is, more or less, in love with Alex, an aspiring actor with determination, but not much luck or talent.

William is a rugby player in love with Larrs, a soap opera star, but his nine-year-old daughter is determined to sabotage their relationship. Finally, there’s Tom, a successful artist, and his handsome “kept boy” Tom who happens to be in love with Harry.

We also meet Paul, the “straight” boyfriend Louise is lamenting about in the opening credits, but rest assured: that storyline is there only for very occasional comic relief.

Mr. Right, written and directed by brother-and-sister team of David Morris (the writer) and Jacqui Morris (the director), is actually a full-fledged ensemble drama about the rest of her friends: how each tries, and sometimes fails, to make love work with their respective boyfriends.

In other words, it's about the gay guys' search for Mr. Right, not Louise's.

Jeremy Edwards as "straight" Paul

The film is a British import, and to its great credit, the characters not the simplistic ones you tend to see in gay cinema: the "slut," the innocent newbie, the drag-queen-with-a-heart-of-gold. They're complicated.

Sometimes they're too complicated. There a lot of storylines to follow, and it takes a fair bit of time for some of them to get going.

But once you get all the characters straight  — and get it into your head that the movie is really not the bouncy romantic comedy that it promises to be in the opening sequence — some of these stories are surprisingly affecting. And just as they're not obvious characters, the conclusions to their stories are not the obvious ones you expect.

Mr. Right airs Sunday, November 8th at 10 PM on Logo (and will be available for streaming at LogoOnline.com).