My Night with Reg (1996)

Set among London's gay community in the mid-1980s against the background of the mounting AIDS crisis, "My Night with Reg" follows the ups and downs of a circle of gay friends over a period of several years. One of the group, the Reg mentioned in the title, is the center of the film, and the whole plot revolves around his sexual promiscuity and the chain reaction of deception and betrayal set off by it. The group of English gay friends get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for a friend in their circle who has died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.

The group, most of them in their thirties, meet at irregular intervals, often at Guy's place. Guy (David Bamber) is a lonely man. Ever since their university days, he has had a crush on John (Anthony Calf) but he has never dared to tell him about it. Instead he lives a solitary life, which he spices up with phone sex and occasional visits to a gay pub, where he meets 18 year-old Eric (Joe Duttine), who then helps him decorate his new flat. On holiday on the island of Lanzarote, he meets a gay man who eventually forces himself on Guy and has unprotected sex with him. At his flatwarming party, he has just come back from his holiday and is still quite shocked about what happened. It is hard for him not to start crying when, as a present, John gives him a cookery book specializing in dishes for one.

The most popular man in the gay circle is Reg, who is conspicuously absent from the party. Reg has had a long-term relationship with Daniel (John Sessions), but Daniel suspects Reg of occasionally being unfaithful to him. In fact, Reg seems to be sleeping with every man he can get hold of (as it seems, even with the vicar). Eventually John, Benny (Kenneth MacDonald) and even his seemingly faithful companion Bernie (Roger Frost) have secret sex with Reg. Ironically, they all confide in Guy. It hurts Guy most to hear that John is having an affair with Reg, thus betraying their mutual friend Daniel. After his fling with Reg, Benny panics because he thinks he might have contracted HIV, but he does not confess it to his partner, Bernie.

When Reg is dying from AIDS, he is looked after by his partner, Daniel. Ironically, the next one to die is Guy, the only one who has not had sex with Reg and who seems to have been infected with AIDS when he was raped during his holiday in Lanzarote. Guy bequeaths his new flat to the love of his life, John, who somewhere in the flat finds all kinds of memorabilia dating back to their student days.

This made for TV BBC production has been described as "a poignant, beautifully written play, warm and funny, but also completely believable, with characters who are more than just ciphers or symbols and emotional themes which are more than just rhetorical window-dressing." Kevin Elyot adapted the screenplay from his own Broadway production of the London hit play of the same title. Roger Michell directed.

Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

This updated "Death in Venice" is about Giles De'Ath (John Hurt), a stuffy British widower and author who doesn't like anything modern. He reminds people that his surname is pronounced "Day-ath," Giles gets locked out of his house one day and decides to see an E. M. Forrester movie adaptation at a cinema to pass the time. He mistakenly goes into the wrong theater and, as he is about to leave the American teenager comedy "Hot Pants College II", notices young actor Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley) who immediately strikes his fancy. He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. From there, we go on a journey with Giles as his attraction to the mediocre actor goes from slight interest to an obsession.

Giles travels to Chesterton, Long Island where Ronnie lives and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor and that's why he admires him. He wants to change Ronnie's career from low-brow to high-brow and start a new career in Europe. Audrey (Fiona Loewi) is the teen idol's fashion model girlfriend, considerably sharper than she first appears. Hurt's futile but brilliant attempts to seduce Ronnie under Audrey's nose is both poignant and hilarious. His meeting with him in some ways pushes the reserved writer's emotional threshold over the top. We come to see Giles as half stalker, half poète maudit, transfigured by a romantic obsession. The subtext of homosexuality is too obvious to be taken seriously, for the real subtext is something more subtle. This movie shows that the love you feel with your eyes and ears is more meaningful than anything that happens below the waist. In the diner scene near the end, Giles admits to Ronnie that he feels love. Ronnie rejects him. The few scenes after that show that Giles' life has been greatly enriched by his non-physical experiences with the heartthrob actor.

The homosexual undercurrent in this wry, offbeat comedy can play comfortably in front of straight viewers looking for humor, satire, crisp writing, fresh perspectives, and great acting. Based on the acclaimed short novel by Gilbert Adair, the screenplay was written by Richard Kwietniowski, who also directed..