Jeffrey

Ladymol's Review:

Not for me.

Jeffrey is a single gay man who decides in the days of AIDS that sex is no longer fun. He decides to stop.

The next day he meets Stephen, a bartender.

I didn’t even finish this film, so perhaps it’s not fair for me to review it. It had a made for TV look about it. It was over the top in its gayness.

It had a theatrical style about it: characters talking directly to camera, dance sequences.

I just couldn’t watch it any more.

Cerisaye's Review:

New Yorker Jeffrey is a gay man who loves sex.  He’s an unsuccessful actor and part-time waiter, who came from Wisconsin looking for a life.  When a condom breaks in the middle of the act, Jeffrey takes fright and swears off the dangerous deed for good.  Sex was meant to be fun, not fatal.  Jeffrey’s attempts to keep celibate make entertaining viewing for the first part of the film.

Cue Mr. Right, hunky Steve, the man of his dreams Jeffrey meets when he goes to the gym in an attempt to find an outlet for all that pent up sexual energy.  You won’t be surprised to learn Steve is HIV positive.  Can Jeffrey resist Steve’s Caesar hair and muscled charms?  Outrageously camp friends Sterling and Darius do their best to push the two together.

Set in the post-party plague years of the 80s, when HIV/AIDS devastated the gay population, this movie is an oddity.  Serious points about sex, death and AIDS mingle with musical numbers, camera asides and some very stereotypical gay characters.  Originally a theatrical production and it shows.  What works on stage, looks out of place or relentlessly OTT translated to the small screen. The film is episodic, and lacks cohesive narrative structure to pull the bits together.  A gay bashing and an AIDS related death make jarring notes of realism amidst whimsy and laughter.  There’s zero chemistry between Jefrey and Steve, both actors appearing uncomfortable in their roles.

It’s not all bad.  Patrick Stewart does his best to charm in a part that’s more caricature than character, and obviously has a great time.  There’s real poignancy when his joy for life is tested to the limit.  Sigourney Weaver does a turn as one of those motivational speakers who parts people from their cash with platitudes.  There’s a very irreverent priest, a drag Mother Theresa and a male lesbian pre-op transexual and her proud mother attending their first Gay Pride.

There’s nothing wrong in trying to deal with sex and death through humour, but this film fails to balance light and dark and never seems to hit its mark, which is a shame because there’s a good story hidden inside.

Buy Region 1 From Amazon USA here: Jeffrey [1996] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Buy Region 2 From Amazon UK here: Jeffrey [1996]

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