I am not the target audience for this, but I think YA Gays deserve something better from Disney.
My two biggest gripes are:
1) There's a very real issue brought up in this movie that I know *I* certainly struggled with as a Gay YA. That issue being how to respond to the affections of a YA heterosexual female.
In the movie, his response is simply to raise his eyebrows into an "Awwww!" face, and gingerly say, "I'm not like that." Any additional detail was left to be passed along by an anonymous elderly woman who conveniently happened to be on that bus. Also conveniently, the plot allowed him to make an immediate exit off the bus, while his best friend remained to go back home, alone. ...kind of a "hit and run", non-response to dealing with the situation.
I found that to be very unsatisfactory. I would have liked to have seen better, more intelligent and sensitive writing that offered Gay YAs a better model for how to respond to this scenario. It's a very tough situation. Nearly all Gay YAs have to deal with it at some point during those very squirrely adolescent years.
2) I could not get past the plot point that Nate was a viral TikTok sensation *only* in NYC, and *only* recognized by strangers he encountered on NYC streets. The adults he was auditioning for seemed to be completely unaware. If they were, they never acknowledged it. You'd think one of them would mention it while discussing his audition(s) amongst themselves. When he returned home, no one in his school seemed to have any idea that he'd gone viral while in NYC, either. ...very odd.
I wasn't as big a fan of Rueby Wood as others. I thought his acting was way over the top, and broadly unnatural. I also didn't find his singing/dancing to be anything to write home about. I liked Lisa Kudrow as the Aunt, though. This is probably the the least "Phoebe"-conjuring acting I've seen her do since "Friends".
What I think YA Gays will most connect with is his relationship with actor Joshua Bassett as the older brother. Although they'll consciously acknowledge that the character is Nate's brother, I think YA Gay viewers will fantasize themselves into Nate's shoes, with Bassett being more an subject of attraction, rather than a brother. (I can remember doing exactly that kind of thing when I was that age.) Hearing Basset shout his line to Nate after his audition (no spoilers) will probably be fulfilling.
As I wrote earlier, I'm not the target audience for this movie, so maybe Gay YAs will be less discerning. As an adult however, I think Gay YAs deserve something better.
There is one (and only one) moment in this movie that I thought was incredibly witty and praise-worthy. Norman Leo Butz has a line at the end of the movie that I think *must* have been ad-libbed (given how cliched most of the scriptwriting is). It comes at a point where the mother tells Butz that their sons are finally getting along with each other, and relays an example. Keep an ear out for it... :)
Updated On: 4/2/22 at 10:40 PM
. According to IMDB:
