Today's a good day in the 2011 Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, with forays into rock, leather, outer space and Casper Andreas' L.A. (perhaps not too far apart, those last two). And the day starts out with The Green, featuring a remarkably strong cast of well-known indie, TV and Broadway actors, including Cheyenne Jackson, Ileana Douglas and Karen Young. Order tickets at tiglff.com, or purchase them at the Tampa Theatre box office. Read more CL reviews of TIGLFF movies here.
The Green Director Steven Williford has assembled an impressive cast for his feature debut. Obie winner Jason Butler Harner and impossibly handsome Cheyenne Jackson of Glee and Broadway fame bring a casual rightness to their roles as a longtime gay couple; Julia Ormond has an unfussy charm as a lesbian lawyer who doesn't know what duct tape is; and Ileana Douglas is her inimitable wry self as Harner's best friend. The story — Harner's a drama teacher whose concern for a troubled student leads to accusations of an "inappropriate" relationship — feels a little bit over-determined: I wish, for instance, it weren't framed by Harner teaching a lesson on The Crucible, because you pretty much know from the get-go that someone's going to get metaphorically burned at the stake because of small-town rumor. And wouldn't a liberal Connecticut private school be a little less inclined to rush to judgment? But accusations involving children have the tendency to obliterate reason, the script seems to be saying, and the film delves honestly into issues of trust and shame that can flare up in the closest of relationships. Sat. Oct. 8, 1 p.m., Tampa Theatre. —David Warner
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.