Straight Up poster

Straight Up (2019)

Directed by James Sweeney · Comedy, Romance

Starring James Sweeney, Katie Findlay, James Scully, Dana Drori, Tracie Thoms, Brendan Scannell, Randall Park, Betsy Brandt, Hillary Anne Matthews, Ken Kirby, Logan Huffman, Grace Song

IHBM9Excellent

A gay brainiac with OCD struggles with accepting his sexuality, and starts a purely romantic, no sex relationship with an actress.

My review · Reviewed 08/25/2020

It's so hard to find a fresh angle in a rom com these days. On the surface this movie sounds a bit gimmicky: a man of questionable sexual identity decides to try to enter into a relationship with a woman after years of acting like a gay man because everyone told him that he was gay. He meets a woman and they instantly hit it off. From there the movie does a fantastic job navigating cliches and paths that we've been down in other movies. While it is a comedy and very funny it is at its heart a drama with a very important question at its center. As the movie goes along the focus of the film slowly changes from the man to the woman until the final scene, which is perfect. I don't know if this film would be as good as it is without Katie Findlay - she is a revelation.

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