the dying gaul

i really enjoyed “the dying gaul,” which we saw last night. it was about a screenwriter (robert, played by the talented and ever so tasty peter sarsgaard) who wrote a script based on the life of his lover malcolm who had just died of AIDS. a hollywood studio executive (jeffrey, played by campbell scott) wants to pay robert $1 million for the script, with the caveat that he must change the script so the two main characters are heterosexual instead of homosexual, because no one will go to see a film where the main characters are gay.

SPOILER WARNING (do not read ahead if you don’t want to know how it ends)

robert gets sucked into a really bizarre situation where he becomes very good friends with jeffrey’s wife elaine but at the same time is having an affair with jeffrey, who is bisexual. elaine wants to know more about robert so she tracks him down in a men seeking men chat room and extracts information from him. she eventually finds out about the affair, pays someone for detailed information about malcolm and robert’s relationship (i think), takes on a chat room name “arc angel”, and pretends to be malcolm. from beyond the grave, i guess. she feeds robert information that he believes only malcolm would know.

you may have guessed that it all ends very badly for all involved.

it was based on a play, and you can really tell from the way the movie was done. it just feels like a stage play. that’s not a bad thing, just an observation.

the ending is very sad and very abrupt. maybe too abrupt. but overall, i enjoyed the film a great deal.