Actor Chad Allen, perhaps best known as Matthew Cooper on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, was outed in the tabloids a few years ago, with a grainy photo of him in a hot tub, kissing another man, splashed on the front page. In Save Me, he portrays Mark, a gay drug addict whose brother enrolls him at Genesis House, a Christian treatment centre that claims to cure both drug addiction and homosexuality. Mark resists the message and the program, torn between the illusion of nose candy and the illusion of religion, but he gradually finds himself feeling more a part of a community than he could ever have expected. He forms an especially close bond with his mentor, Scott (Robert Gant from Queer As Folk [U.S.]). Likewise, the film is surprisingly sympathetic to the Christian element of the story. Strong performances by several of the actors make the film far more than a polemic against "ex-gay" therapy. "Praise Jesus and pass those contraceptives!" Strongly recommended.
Save Me, dir. Robert Cary, USA 2007, 97 min. 35mm (on video)
Technorati tags: Save Me, Chad Allen, InsideOut, Toronto, LGBT Film
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