The Broken Hearts Club **** (2000, Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain, Zach Braff, Ben Weber, John Mahoney, Mary McCormack, Nia Long) – Classic Movie Review 929

Writer-director Greg Berlanti’s 2000 comedy is that rare mainstream movie – a quality, funny, perceptive, life-affirming character study of a group of gay men living, loving and bitching in West Hollywood, LA.

Happily, in the year 2000, the Boys in the Band have grown up. Following the personal-life struggles of the group, it celebrates the highs of lows of their friendships, and shows their battles to find a partner – whether for the night or for a lifetime – to mature from teen attitudes into a 30something adult and to enjoy a worthwhile life.

At the centre of the story is Dennis (Timothy Olyphant), a sexy 28-year-old photographer reflecting on his life, friends and the challenges he faces. His inner thoughts – ‘I can’t remember when I first realised I was gay, only the first time I knew it was okay. It was when I met these guys – my friends.’ – poignantly and truthfully speak for all of them. But then he says: ‘I can’t decide if my friends are the best or worst thing that ever happened to me’!

Spirited performances from a talented young ensemble cast smooth the movie over some of the uneasiness and hiccups in an otherwise sterling, sometimes hilarious, always truthful-seeming, warts-and-all script. Olyphant is excellent, charismatically holding the whole movie together.

John Mahoney stars in The Broken Hearts Club.

John Mahoney plays the group’s elder statesman, the owner of The Broken Hearts Club of the title, and appears, as you never thought you’d see him, in drag.

Ben Weber is excellent too as the group’s wise ugly duckling: Mahoney tells him: ‘Not everyone is beautiful. Some people are just gay and ordinary. We’re the strongest, I think.’

Writer-director Berlanti says: ‘I wanted to write a film about gay men that was more the way I knew the gay world to be, which is very mainstream and regular. I wanted to write a gay film that was about romance and not about sex, something that was universal that everybody could understand.’ And he has. It’s subtitled A Romantic Comedy.

The Broken Hearts Club had two thumbs up from Siskell and Ebert.

Berlanti’s next feature as director was a decade later with Life As We Know It in 2010 with Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl. But he is a prolific TV writer and wrote the screen story and screenplay for Green Lantern (2011). He went on to make the gay coming out movie Love, Simon in 2018.

Dean Cain, Zach Braff, Andrew Keegan, Nia Long, Mary McCormack, Matt McGrath, Billy Porter, Justin Theroux, Robert Arce, Michael Bergin, Chris Payne Gilbert, Nora Burns, John Brandon, Diane McBain, Robert Peters, Chris Wiehl, Jennifer Coolidge, Kerr Smith, Ken Kerman, Brian Gaskill, Chris Kane, David Youse, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz are in the great ensemble cast.

In March 2018, Dean Cain came out as a same-sex marriage supporter. ‘If anybody wants to get married, go ahead,’ he said. ‘I have a lot of gay friends. I can’t understand why it’s an issue. For me, it’s a non-issue.’ He is a registered Republican.

See also Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988).

John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018).

RIP much loved John Mahoney (1940–2018). He appeared in two films with Cher in 1987: Moonstruck and Suspect. His last film was Flipped (2010).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 929 derekwinnert.com