'Straight Up' Review: Jam Sweeney's Gay Braiac Screwball Comedy - Variety

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Sweeney plays Todd, who has been lled gay sce bulli tnted him fourth gra. He has always bought to the ia that he mt be gay bee he is a b lite and very precise, cludg stggl wh OCD pulsns about cleanls. Now an adult who has never had a sexual or a romantic relatnship, Todd wonrs if beg gay means more than beg perceived as effemate at age ne.

Ryr tells him, "You n't jt ci to be straight bee you don't like the gay people you are meetg.

“Straight Up” tells the story of Todd (played by Sweeney), an sanely articulate Asian-Amerin gay software r, wh shirts buttoned up to his Adam’s apple, who’s so quick and fsy and arch that the thoughts pour out of him like nfsnal word salad. So what he cis, on a whim of iron, is that the reason he’s nng om his sexualy is that he is not, fact, gay. Der, his two bt iends — Meg (Dana Drori), a tic mol and supereak, and Ryr (Jam Scully), his longtime gay chum — beg to differ.

Girls aren’t gay-bld anymore. He’s gay, and has nvced himself that he’s havg a sexual-inty crisis, all to avoid nontg his real crisis: that he has walled himself off om the human race. Taken at face value, “Straight Up” is the story of a gay du who puts himself through his own form of gay-programmg therapy (so naturally, ’s doomed not to take).

Is Todd someone who, as Ryr observ, “n’t get over your ternalized homophobia”?

Todd has failed to form any romantic nnectns and starts to wonr if he might be bisexual as opposed to his current stat of homosexualy.

Before the events of the film, he had nsired himself gay, but now, he is startg to wonr if that was somethg that he had ndned himself to believe whout explorg other avenu. If there was any qutn about Todd’s gayns, is cleared up as his relatnship wh Rory progrs.

He has stopped wonrg jt how gay he is, and he se himself spendg the rt of his life wh Rory. He uld be gay, he uld be bi, he uld also be asexual.

His OCD and general aversn to all bodily fluids has left him wh a arth of rnal experienc, and he begs to qutn his label of "gay. " Jt as some people feel they've been flted wh the label of "straight" at birth, Todd wonrs whether the "gay" label may have also been imposed upon him whout his own personal choice or exploratn of his entire selfhood. His iends dismiss his ncerns out of hand and sist that he is gay — further exemplifyg the pot that even though Todd is clearly unsure of his own sexual affi, those around him sist they are certa.

He might be gay.