Tru Loved (DVD)

Starring: Najarra Townsend, Jake Abel, Matthew Thompson, Tye Olson, Jane Lynch
Director: Stewart Wade
Running Time: 110 mins
Certificate: 15

While a lot of the time in the world of no-budget gay movies it wouldn’t make much difference if there’d been more cash to give a film a bit more polish, with Tru Loved it’s a real shame as its lack of panache (particularly it’s audio problems) is likely to limit its audience more than it should.

Tru (Townsend) has just moved from San Francisco with her two moms to a much smaller community. There she meet Lodell (Thompson), the high school quarterback. She’s surprised when he shows interest in her but she quickly works out that he’s really gay and is just completely unprepared to come out. While she’s not really keen on being his beard, she eventually agrees to allow other to think they’re dating, even though they’re only friends.

Lodell’s less than impressed when Tru decides to try and start up a gay-straight alliance at the school, alongside the openly gay Walter (Olson), as he thinks it will end up with people thinking he’s gay. If all this weren’t confusing enough, in comes Trevor (Abel), who lives with his gay uncle and starts to date Tru, even though she’s the faux-girlfriend of Lodell.

While the script has a few issues, it’s largely a very entertaining teen rom com, which a good message about acceptance and being true to yourself. They may be rather old hat sentiments, but it’s nice to see them through a truly diverse array of family relationships, and different stages of being out and proud in the world.

Several fairly well-known faces pop up in minor roles (and Jake Abel as Trevor has become better known since he filmed Tru Loved thanks to roles in Percy Jackson and The Lovely Bones). Jane Lynch puts in a very brief but fun appearance (shot pre-Glee), Bruce Villanch (best known for writing jokes for the Oscars) is also good as Trevor’s gay uncle, even if his lack of neck is as disturbing as it always is, while Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols also shows up, seemingly just to deliver one pretty obvious joke at the end, which she spends the whole movie building up to.

This really would be a good movie for young people coming to terms with their sexuality, but as mentioned, largely because it doesn’t have the sort of post-production polish of studio product, it’s never going to be anything more than a small cult success.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac