PIKE (a shy store clerk): That food’s gross. He needs me to look after him.ĬOMICAL WIDOW: I’ll cook for your grandpa while he recovers. HENRY (an artist): My grandpa had a stroke. NEW YORK FRIEND: I can’t believe you skipped your gallery show to visit Montana. Act One: Going Home Grandpa (George Coe) drags Henry (Arye Gross) to church. You can stream the film here before or after reading my spoiler filled recap. He provides the film with its most powerful and heartbreaking scenes. White Collar’s Tim DeKay brings some beefcake and mystery as the former high school heartthrob filled with regrets and confusion. The mopey central couple and languid pace bring it down. The idyllic rural setting makes Big Eden stand out. But Big Eden is full of condescending locals who are eager to play match maker. He expects homophobia from his Hallmark town. He’s soon pining for his high school crush and ignoring the attentions of a pathologically shy store clerk (Eric Schweig). And it’s an eye-opener.A self-loathing artist (Arye Gross) returns to his rural home to care for his ailing grandfather. Each angle fills in another piece of the puzzle, but only the audience - and, finally, eldest sister Alice - get to see the total picture. Working from his own droll script, writer-director Gerard Stembridge offers us four radically different views of his eager-to-please protagonist. Instantly smitten by Adam’s boyish good looks and intrigued by his seeming reluctance to jump her bones, Lucy introduces Adam to her gushing mum (Rosaleen Linehan) and her two sisters, tragic literature-lover Laura (Frances O’Connor) and married, cynical Alice (Charlotte Bradley).Īdam quickly establishes himself as something very, very different than the shy boy Lucy imagines. She plays Lucy, a love-’em-and-leave-’em singing waitress who meets her match in a mysterious stranger named Adam (chameleonlike charmer Stuart Townsend). T and the Women) shimmers again in About Adam, a small but wickedly funny romantic comedy set in Dublin, Ireland. Neither question inspires breathless suspense. The only things to worry about are whether Sam’s health will worsen and whether Pike will overcome his shyness and admit he’s cooking all those gourmet meals. By creating a kind of politically correct version of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, director Bezucha has drained the movie not only of bigotry but also of dramatic conflict. In the entire town, there is not one bigot, not a single citizen who doesn’t want Henry to move back home, settle down with either Dean or Pike, teach art at school and perhaps be commemorated with a statue in the town square. And the entire town of Big Eden loves him too: teacher Grace Cornwell (Louise Fletcher), kids, parents, the mayor and especially the seven old codgers who hang out at Pike’s general store - all of whom scheme like a gang of cupids to bring Henry and Pike together. Henry’s ability to inspire comradeship, love and culinary craft may seem a bit like wish fulfillment. So does shy, hulking, sensitive Native American Pike Dexter (Eric Schweig), also an ex-classmate - he falls madly in love with Henry and spends the movie cooking and delivering gourmet meals to Henry while mysteriously pretending they were made by the local grande dame, Widow Thayer (Nan Martin). Dean shows up, still regarding Henry as his best buddy despite a 10-year hiatus. This convenient reunion and the renewal of an old high school crush suggests something along the lines of Chuck and Buck - which was partly a gay sexual fantasy as well. Dean, now a divorced father with two young sons, surprisingly returns almost the same time Henry does. And for years, he has suffered from unrequited passion for his high school best friend, football hero Dean Stewart (Tim DeKay). Henry’s family and friends, amazingly, remain unaware of his sexual orientation. Though his art career is booming and a gallery show of his art is about to open, painter Henry Hart (Arye Gross) unselfishly decides to care for Grandpa Sam (George Coe) during his convalescence in a paradisiacal house by the lake. It’s a tall tale about a successful gay New York artist who moves back to his Montana small-town birthplace, Big Eden, when his grandfather suffers a stroke. In Big Eden, first-time writer-director Thomas Bezucha concocts a fantasy of heartland good will and sexual brotherhood so unlikely that it’s amazing he’s able to present it as a piece of low-key comic realism.
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