Save Me (2007)
Directed by Robert Cary
Starring Chad Allen, Robert Gant, Judith Light, Stephen Lang
96 minutes
First Run Releasing (DVD)
This quiet, unassuming drama snuck into theatres last year and disappeared quickly. Months later, it’s DVD release is garnering the acclaim it deserves.
A compassionate film about the painful divide between Christians and gays, Save Me is a tender love story about two gay men who enter an ex-gay halfway house, where they fall in love and learn to accept who they really are.
Mark (Chad Allen) is speeding away: his out of control life is a roller coaster of sex and drugs. Scott (Robert Gant) is trying to please his terminally ill fundamentalist father. Gayle (Judith Light) runs the ex-gay Christian retreat in the New Mexico desert where the two men now live. Gayle is a deeply conflicted woman who’s trying to do for Mark, Scott and others what she could not do for her own gay son, who committed suicide some years earlier.
At first, Mark and Scott fall in step, accepting the Lord and loving their new lives. But they’re attraction to each other runs deep, and cannot be ignored. Gayle can see what’s happening: she’s powerless to stop it.
The story unfolds slowly, and without judgment. There are no heroes here, and no villains. Everyone is seen as who they are, at face value. Viewers will root for Scott and Mark as their love deepens, but viewers~~gay viewers included~~will feel sympathies for the equally conflicted Gayle. She’s torn apart with guilt over her son’s death. She can’t bring him back, but she can “save” others, can’t she?
The cast is magnificent. Allen and Gant, both out gay actors, play off each other beautifully. They make for a beautiful couple: they’re love is tender and pure.
Light, a staunch gay rights advocate in her off-screen life, gives Gayle three dimensions. Gayle’s clueless to her own sad truth: her methods don’t work, and she hurts people. Yet she honestly believes that she’s doing what’s right. Her son’s death and the love between Mark and Scott gives her a small glimpse at the truth, a truth she is unable to face.
Shot on a shoestring with a small cast, Save Me stands head and shoulders above
bigger budgeted, more elaborate films. It’s an important film, with a heart and a soul. Save Me could conceivably bridge the gap that exists between “us” and “them”, if only “they” would watch it.
Maybe they will. Besides its DVD release, Save Me will air on Showtime February 19 and 24, with more airdates to follow. Hopefully Light’s mainstream fan base from her TV roles (One Life to Live, Who’s the Boss, Ugly Betty) will tune in and get a much-needed education.
First Run Releasing’s disc of the film includes several deleted scenes and cast interviews.
David Alex Nahmod lives in San Francisco, where he does film/DVD reviews & celebrity interviews for a variety of publications. Visit him at: DavidsOpenForum.Blogspot.com.
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David:
Is this one of your films? Sounds like a truly good film on a subject dear to my heart. Little by little the world will evolve into a more sane and accepting place. Won’t it? Isn’t it? Pleas tell me there IS a Santa. Love “Virginia.”
Comment by Georgina Spelvin — February 21, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
Hey There, Georgie Girl:
I wish I had made this.
Love Ya!
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — February 21, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
My partner and I watched the DVD last week. It was much better than we expected it to be. Highly recommended!
Comment by Richard Rush — February 21, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
Hi David,
This film high lights an issue which even I as a straight man I find deeply disturbing. Namely the view of many so-called Christians that to be gay is a mortal sin and something which is to be corrected through Christian faith.
It is true that in the Bible there is a part which says that a man should not sleep with another man (I’m paraphrasing here), but when that piece was written the commonly held view was that a man had sex with other men because it was a consious decision on their part. In short they were somehow ‘perverted’. We now know of course that a person is born with their sexuality, it is not a decision that they make. I was born attracted to women. I have no say in the matter – it is part of my physiological/psycological makeup. So it is with everyone – be they Hetero/Gay/Lesbion or whatever.
So it seems to me whether you believe in a God or not that it is a flawed argument that being gay/lesbion etc. is a sin – since we are all as God has made us.
Real love when it is found is not based purely on sexuality – it is a meeting between two people’s souls (at the risk of being pretentious). The sexual side is just small part of it.
I hope as many people as possible get to see this film – though I doubt that those who hold the ‘gay-is-a-sin’ belief can be persuaded/enlightened by anything.
Comment by Nigel — February 22, 2009 @ 6:38 am
It was a very good film and entertaining. It showed the harm of these groups in a realistic way.
Comment by Wayne Besen — February 23, 2009 @ 11:59 am