In 1987 teen-age goth couple Adam Bernstein (Craig Chester) and obese Rhonda (Parker Posey) are at the Danceteria, a NYC club where timid Adam meets gay Go-Go dancer Steve (Malcolm Gets) and they have a disastrous one night stand. Steve cut his cocaine with baby laxative, causing a scatological end to his precoital striptease. Adam cleans up the mess. In 2005 Adam meets psychiatrist Steve Hicks and they fall in love, fail to recognize each other from years before, and become lovers. The couple never actually say anything interesting to each another. Adam is insecure, in recovery from cocaine addiction, and leads bird-watching expeditions in Central Park. Eventually he realizes that promiscuous Steve is the gay dancer, and ends the relationship. The movie's funnier jokes revolve around Rhonda, now a svelte stand up comic whose act consists of fat jokes delivered to a bored audience of five. Other laughs come from Adam's accident-prone family, who are propped around the dinner table in casts and braces.
"Adam and Steve" is a movie about movies. It takes the romantic comedy genre and shows how a straight couple is similar and different compared to a gay couple. The film deals with universal themes, and is not a political or issue movie, or about being gay. It's a film about two gay guys who fall in love that is actually acted by two out gay actors. The opening fifteen minutes of the film are the best, as Adam and Rhonda strut their stuff in the night club--him in full goth makeup and her in a fat suit. There's also a bizarre country and western dance number that seems like it's from a different movie, except it's a showdown between the estranged lovers in the form of a cowboy line-dance. Roddy Bottum composed the music. Craig Chester wrote the screenplay, directed, and stars as Adam.
"Adam and Steve" is a movie about movies. It takes the romantic comedy genre and shows how a straight couple is similar and different compared to a gay couple. The film deals with universal themes, and is not a political or issue movie, or about being gay. It's a film about two gay guys who fall in love that is actually acted by two out gay actors. The opening fifteen minutes of the film are the best, as Adam and Rhonda strut their stuff in the night club--him in full goth makeup and her in a fat suit. There's also a bizarre country and western dance number that seems like it's from a different movie, except it's a showdown between the estranged lovers in the form of a cowboy line-dance. Roddy Bottum composed the music. Craig Chester wrote the screenplay, directed, and stars as Adam.
