Review Of Kiss The Bride

A good place to begin is to admit that giving Kiss The Bride four stars is probably overly generous.  Indeed, if you were to force me to summarize this film in a word, that word would be “cute.”  But sometimes “cute” is enough for a movie that makes no grand claims.  Honesty counts a lot with me.

The film asks some of the same “what if…” questions that many of us ask in our own lives.  For example, “What if I honestly confronted and revisited that first love?”  That’s a question that countless Hollywood romantic comedies have approached, including several from a gay point of view.

What makes this movie stand apart from the others is the honesty that it employs in the query.  Yes, it is often predictable, but it throws enough curves at us that it is not entirely predictable, which is much like real life.

Philipp Karner turns in a solidly unselfconscious performance as our protagonist.  James O’Shea gives an uninspired but satisfactory turn as that first, adolescent love.  Tori Spelling–I know this will sound like an oxymoron to some–is the best I have ever seen her as the title, would be bride.

The insights that Kiss The Bride provides are not in the central conflict but in the periphery details.  Its examination of the fluidity of sexuality in a scene between Spelling and Karner is touchingly believable.  However, it is the examination of the differences among homosexual experimentation, a phase of adolescent life and a truly gay identity that give this little movie some social meaning.  That is what is missing from other movies of its ilk, and it is for that reason that I decided to award the extra star.

Watching this film is a better use of time than many other choices. 

Genre: Gay themed drama

Director: C. Jay Cox

Language: English

Availability: DVD

99Gay-Men.us Rating: ****

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