When my editor (the invincible Steve Geer) informed me that our Pride Issue was going to press I scrapped my original plan to review the recent live-action version of Peter Pan certain that I could find a more appropriate choice. Then it got a bit more complicated. It didn’t seem quite right to choose one that I knew was good ahead of time, but, on the other hand, anything else was going to be a crap shoot. Even with good word-of-mouth, you can’t know for certain till the end credits roll. So I picked one that had looked fairly promising on more than one occasion, and hoped for the best. It seems I lucked out. Regular Guys (aka Echte Kerle) is Rolf Silber’s German Art-house comedy with a message. The message doesn’t keep it from being warm or genuinely funny. And it’s heartfelt, without being snuggly cute or sappy. It’s a comedy of manners, spoofing numerous human frailties: gay-panic, swagger, dealing in appearances, the trivial conventions of courtship. It’s plausible enough to be gratifying, even if, once again, the straight man’s orientation is salvaged (whew!) at the cost of the gay man’s search for true romance. And I have to wonder, what with this being Pride Month and all, if it’s necessary to be grateful for Regular Guys? It’s another film where the heteros struggle to reach the enlightenment “The Queer Lead” was basking in from the start. Hallelujah. The crops are saved. I know I shouldn’t be so cantankerous and make nice, but I confess, I was very dubious about the premise. The hero, a cop, Christoph Schwenk (Christoph Ort) gets drunk after his girlfriend kicks him out and wakes up naked next to another man, every breeder-boy’s nightmare! Yikes. Will Christoph ever recover his privilege of straight entree’ or will his poor pecker just shrivel and fall off?
Despite its’ less than encouraging onset, Regular Guys picks up pretty quickly. Needless to say, Edgar (Tim Bergmann) his bed partner is ruthlessly coy about the details leading up to their current state of consortium, and is tickled to exploit Christoph’s discomfort. After trying for several days to find other accommodations, Christoph returns to Edgar’s apartment, willing to put up with his flirtations and maddening evasiveness. At work he must deal with a woman detective (Oh no!) joining he and his partner on a stake out and the rumor mill, once he and Edgar are spotted having a drink at a gay bar. Just before the movie’s finished, he and the lady detective, Helen (Carin C. Tietze) fall in love. If some of this material sounds, what? Really familiar? Derivative? Trite? I’d be hard-pressed to argue the point.
But as I said earlier, it’s not easy to turn consciousness-raising into a living, breathing film that actually works and I was relieved by how many times Regular Guys surprised me. The writing wasn’t profound or poignant, but clever and true. Edgar isn’t condemned for being sexually assertive, and while a lot of straight men would have been grateful for the mystery, Christoph longs to know just what happened between he and Edgar. They banter, they fight, they start to understand each other and damn, if he doesn’t climb right back into the tub with Edgar. Coming home late one night, seeing Edgar making love with another man, he feels a twinge! Edgar’s mother, Iris (Daniela Ziegler in a bravura turn) sees them asleep in bed and comments, “Even if one of them isn’t gay, they still make a beautiful couple.”
It isn’t clear at first, but Christoph is open to the possibility that he might be gay. And he doesn’t shoot himself or become a psycho-killer or beat the shit out of Edgar. He cares for him, he kisses him on the mouth. He figures out, all by himself, that it’s not about the sex, it’s about connecting with other men. Okay, so I’m still being a little sarcastic, but yeah, I did, I cried. Rolf Silber has brokered an uneasy marriage between the lighthearted and noble. Regular Guys is great fun and more than a little moving.