Director: Justin Kelly
Certificate: NR
Release Date: March 19th 2015 (BFI Flare Gala)
Chosen as the Opening Night Gala film for this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival, this is an angry-making film. It’s supposed to be as it’s probably the first Going In movie, in that it’s a reversed Coming Out tale: I am Michael tells the story of how Michael Glatze went from out gay activist and editor of San Fransisco-based gay magazine XY to a straight, married Pastor in Wyoming.
The film opens with James Franco as Michael and Zachary Quinto as his loving-yet-bland boyfriend Bennet. Apparently they’re happily in love in San Francisco, both running a gay magazine and helping gay youth in 2001. We watch as Bennett and Michael go from being happy together to being happy in a three-way relationship with Tyler (played by the ab-tastic Charlie Carver). At least, we assume they’re happy together – at no point does anyone say “I am happy being gay with you”, which is about the level of some of the exposition this script has in places. Michael is moody. Bennett is bland. Tyler is pretty. That’s about it. [Read more…]