5 years ago, Max (Trent Kendrick) and Rafael (Rafael Albarran) were a couple, despite being very different from one another, Rafael being flamboyand and embracing gay culture while Max was the rather reserved one - if openly gay for that, he just didn'tlike to "dress gay", wasn't into any "gay anthems" or into drag shows. Then though they broke up because Max cheated on Rafael, and since Max has moved to LA to become a screenwriter. With little success so far as he hasn't even finished one script, but at least as an editor he's working in the industry. And as luck has it, recently his friends (Torrey B. Lawrence, Michael Vaccaro) have asked him to move into their dreamhouse for two weeks to do a bit of dogsittting. And he's currently planning for a romantic dinner with his boyfriend Hunter (Alexeev Dismuke) when there's a knock on his door, and it's Rafael. He has recently moved to LA to work as a drag queen, but he has had a fall-out with his roommate, and needs to stay until he finds something new. Of course, that somewhat spoils the "romantic" part of Max and Hunter's dinner, but other than that, the three get along nicely - probably especially because Max has told Rafael beforehands that he isn't to tell Hunter he's his ex. And Rafael also makes a valid effort to move out ... but then Covid strikes, and the lockdowns that come with it, and suddenly Rafael is forced to stay with Max while the actual house owners are stuck on a cruise that's soon come to be a Covid hotspot. That said, things at first go almost surprisingly well, Max and Rafael have mentally grown over the last five years and can respect each other's boundaries. Until they take some pills they've found in the homeowners drug stash - and suddenly the boundaries are off - live during a Zoom party ...

In a way, this film brings back many memories of the Covid lockdowns, from not being agle to personally meet those close to one to endless Zoom parties, from then president Trump spouting bizarre theories about the pandemic to almost forced watching of Tiger King, memories one has long wanted to forget - but the film does so with charm and verve, and while above synopsis might read like a romantic comedy, the film is actually more of a slice-of-life story that includes quite a few threads, some more comical, some tragic, some both, and its very subtle direction does the film well, as does its cast of characters made up from more than just gay clichés, and of course its solid cast. And in all, this is just a very entertaining watch, maybe one of the most enjoyable and also positive films about an era we all collectively try to forget.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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