When I rented this movie and watched the trailer, I initially thought it would be something far different then it was. I thought I was going to watch a movie about a guy who gets lured into the christian right (a cult section or something). After all, what type of assumption is someone suppose to make after reading articles about the real man who was a gay activists and one day decides he no longer identifies as gay and not only that but a heterosexual man. Instead I got a movie about a man journey into finding god.
I can only see this movie's summary as a "click-bait" thread or a click-bait movie. There is no doubt in my mind that such a movie would have never seen production if it was about a straight man, leaving his girlfriend and their liberal friends and getting a new girlfriend and joining "God"/becoming a Republican. The story would be boring, and for me the story of gay man doing the same is just as boring. The fact that the man identified as gay and was an activists did not make it any better. It just drew people in with false beliefs about what the movie was about. I feel a bit cheated to be honest. I want my 6.99 rental fee back.
The movie follows a man who has been working for a gay magazine. He is in a long term relationship with a man. They invite another man into their relationship and home. It follows them up until the main character starts getting heart palpitations (panic attacks) that he mistakenly believes are his heart failing. It brings him to believe that he has the same disease as his father. He goes to the doctor numerous times because no matter what they say he is sure he has it and they keep happening even though his life was something he was happy with (at least that was my take on it). He continues to have them until he prays, he receives a call from a specialists that everything is okay that he doesn't have what his father had.
At this point the MC decides to take a closer look into the church and the bible after attending a gathering at a church. At first he hides his interest in the bible and his church meetings from the two who he is in a relationship with. He starts bringing up small things to indicate his new found belief in god, probably to test the waters of his new found belief. He is met with the reactions he probably expected, disbelief, scoffing, and "what have you done with the man I know". He laughs it off, but this is probably the turning point. His new found belief and his current life can not live hand in hand is probably the conclusion he has reached. The conclusion is only later reinforced after he leaves his boyfriends and goes on a meditation retreat in which he sleeps with a different man. This man is not willing to talk with him about his new belief in god, he isn't willing to listen to him and leaves him. He meets with a women who says that his beliefs (christian ones, is what he takes it as) and him being at the magazine can not exist symbiotically and asks him to leave. His old life has abandoned him (even though he left some of it on his own, though in his mind they probably abandoned him first).
Then we come to his journey to going to bible school. He meets people, who are open and friendly. They have the same thoughts and ideas. If he was still was wavering if he made the right choice to give up his gay identity, they were probably abolished.
In my opinion someone with a personality portrayed in the movie would make such a decision. Whether he likes men or not. Giving up one thing, to serve your higher purpose is not that different then a nun or a priest who decide to be celibate. While others would probably say something else. People deny themselves all the time because in my opinion people love to suffer. Though there are those who want to believe their suffering for a higher purpose where as others believe that life is about suffering.
It is my belief there are people who need religion and all that it promises keeps them same. I read a book called the "Game Changer" recently. The main villain had the means to wipe out the religious centers in peoples in brains through the use of small nanobots and a virus. Some of the characters thought "that's fine, it won't change much". The neuroscientist drew a different conclusion. That people need religion. This is something that I thought for awhile. In college after taking a bunch of classes the thought was only cemented. There are too many religions in the world for it not to be true. People join cults and are lead to do things that is usually not something they would do if not surrounded by others with the same beliefs. Some people need relegion more than others. Faced with mortality, sickness, permenant disability, or hardships it is a comfort to believe there is a higher purpose. That your suffering is not in vain.
I am mostly jealous of these people who can believe something so absolutely. At the same time I find it hard to empathize with such a people. I have not found god or had any revelations. Sorry about the tangent.
I thought that this would be better served as a book. Watching a movie about it the audience is left snoozing a bit. It's very slow going, there is no extra drama for entertainment purposes. A book would have been able to provide insight into characters head. The struggles they are going through. Which are all internal. The movie doesn't do a very good job of showing these internal struggles, they only show the outward result of the internal struggle. Leaving the audience with just the filling and no crust.
