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"Shelter" by Loren McLeod
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I just returned “Shelter,” the gay romance with Trevor Wright as Zach and Brad Rowe as Shaun, to Blockbuster…for the fourth time.
Yeah, I’ve rented it four times, and seen it forty, though lately I’ll only watch it through the end of the second act. I like watching Zach and Shaun fall in love. I prefer not to watch their relationship endure turmoil in the third act though, and I’m going to SPOIL it here, they wind up living happily ever after.
“Shelter” is among the better gay movies I’ve seen recently, and perhaps ever. Its writer/director Jonah Markowitz’ first feature film, though you’d hardly know it the script and direction are so tight. Photography, production design, music…everything is good including, and above all, casting.
Trevor Wright is perfect as Zach, the hardworking, responsible 20-something who puts his art education on hold to take care of his irresponsible sister’s four year old son.
Zach’s got all kinds of struggles going on: satisfying his talent doing street art, minding his nephew Cody, maintaining an on-again off-again relationship with high school girlfriend Tori, played smartly and sparingly by a lovely actress named Katie Walder, and recognizing his attraction toward his best friend’s older brother Shaun. The thing is, the script isn’t overly wordy, nor does Zach have a confidante to whom he can express all these conflicts. Wright has to communicate all of it to the audience with expressions and gestures. Someone once said “Acting is what you do when you don’t have lines.” No one is more aware of that than Trevor Wright who, with a look, can express a volume of emotion.
As good is Brad Rowe, in what I think is his best role, though to be honest, I’ve only seen a fraction of the work listed on his imdb.com page. None of what I’ve seen—“Purgatory,” “Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss,” “Christina’s House,” “The Outer Limits,” “Body Shots,” and “The Insatiable”—has been a terrific vehicle for him. “Shelter” is. A good script, a complex character, a story told well. Rowe nails the role of the kind, compassionate, mildly world weary approaching middle aged novelist who retreats to his parents’ empty house to recover from a breakup. He nails every line and every expression so accurately I forgot I was watching the young blonde hottie from “Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss” and the other aforementioned titles. He reminds me of Joan Collins,
who spent the first two dozen years of her career being referred to as a poor man’s Elizabeth Taylor or Jean Simmons or Sophia Loren. Rowe’s spent the first dozen of his being compared similarly to Brad Pitt. With “Dynasty,” Collins came into her own. “Shelter” is Rowe’s “Dynasty.” No longer will scripts arrive at his house with more popular actors’ fingerprints on them. I mean it.
Perfect, too, as Zach’s sister Jeannie is Tina Holmes,
who would have walked away with the movie had her two male costars not been so strong. Holmes is another actress I’ve seen before and, like Rowe, she disappears into her character. Producer J.D. DiSalvatore writes on her wonderfully named website, www.thesmokingcocktail.com, that many actresses auditioned for Jeannie, but they tended to play her as simply trash. Holmes could have done so, but she made Jeannie complex. Trashy, yes…selfish, irresponsible, manipulative, pitiful, but also SCARED. Jeannie was terrified of losing Zach to art school and later, Shaun. So curious that some reviewers suggest Jeannie’s disapproval of her brother’s being gay is homophobia they don’t buy. The fact is, Jeannie cares not that Zach is a homo, but that Shaun might take him away from her. Holmes plays Jeannie as the neglectful horror she is, but she makes her so vulnerable and sad that you understand why Zach understands, and loves her. Do check out a great short film Tina Holmes made several years ago called “Waking Dreams.” She appears in it with Ben Shenkman (“Angels in America”) and Stephanie McVay (“Another Gay Movie”). It was written and directed by John Daschbach. You can see it at: http://www.myspace.com/mirrormovies.
The supporting cast is also dead on balls accurate: Walder as Tori, Ross Thomas as Zach’s best friend and Shaun’s younger half-brother Gabe, Jackson Wurth as Cody, Matt Bushell as Alan and J.D. DiSalvatore’s dog Charley as “dog on beach.”
My favorite moments in the film are:
•
When a confused and mildly freaked-out Zach comes home to the house he shares with Jeannie after having spent his first night with Shaun. She grills him about where he’s been and what he’s been doing and he says, “What the fuck?” Jeannie then says my favorite line in the movie, and you really have to be there, “I’m just asking!”
When a confused and mildly freaked-out Zach comes home to the house he shares with Jeannie after having spent his first night with Shaun. She grills him about where he’s been and what he’s been doing and he says, “What the fuck?” Jeannie then says my favorite line in the movie, and you really have to be there, “I’m just asking!”•Gabe visits his parents house from college for a weekend and ascends the stairs to Shaun’s bedroom shouting, “How’s my princess older brother? You got a guy in there you slut!” Would that all our siblings were as playful with our orientation. Gabe reminds me of my little brother who calls me a “fag” in so sweet a way it's truly a term of endearment.
Gabe visits his parents house from college for a weekend and ascends the stairs to Shaun’s bedroom shouting, “How’s my princess older brother? You got a guy in there you slut!” Would that all our siblings were as playful with our orientation. Gabe reminds me of my little brother who calls me a “fag” in so sweet a way it's truly a term of endearment.•In the third act Zach stops seeing Shaun and ignores his calls, yet he thinks about him and, in one scene, wears this ugly-on-him gold t-shirt of Shaun's that happened to come into his possession.
In the third act Zach stops seeing Shaun and ignores his calls, yet he thinks about him and, in one scene, wears this ugly-on-him gold t-shirt of Shaun's that happened to come into his possession.•After breaking up, finally, with Tori, an angry Zach drops her off at her house. He wants to screech away immediately, but waits for her to get inside her house safely, and then screeches away.
After breaking up, finally, with Tori, an angry Zach drops her off at her house. He wants to screech away immediately, but waits for her to get inside her house safely, and then screeches away.•The evening after Zach and Shaun see each other for the first time in years, Shaun discovers a walkie-talkie in his parents’ house in the first act. He talks into it, just for something to do. It’s linked to a walkie talkie in Zach’s house, and he responds, scaring the heck out of Shaun. The men chat a bit on it and it’s kind of a nice device and sort of really sweet.
The evening after Zach and Shaun see each other for the first time in years, Shaun discovers a walkie-talkie in his parents’ house in the first act. He talks into it, just for something to do. It’s linked to a walkie talkie in Zach’s house, and he responds, scaring the heck out of Shaun. The men chat a bit on it and it’s kind of a nice device and sort of really sweet.There’s one problem I have with “Shelter,” one with which I’ve tried to reconcile myself each of the dozens of times I’ve watched it. It’s the scene where Zach, who has been a dick to Shaun after they exchange a few drunken, chaste kisses, can’t hold back anymore and shows up to Shaun’s house and throws himself at him. The men kiss as they ascend a staircase to Shaun’s bedroom, removing each others clothing and then rolling around naked (though shot from the waist up…no butt shots here…not necessary) on his bed. OK, if I’m that hot for someone and he’s that hot for me and we’re all passionately removing each other’s clothes and rolling around on his bed and everything, you can be damn sure our tongues are going to be in each other’s mouths. They are. They just are. But in “Shelter,” the characters…the actors, only dry kiss. It just bothers me so much every time I see that scene, not the least because in every other way the actors RESPECT the characters and the story. It’s as if they, as straight men, could only go so far, and that was a line in the sand neither Wright nor Rowe would cross. It just makes me so aggravated and, yes, I’ve tried to excuse it and understand it, but there’s no way Zach and Shaun’s tongues wouldn’t be down each other’s mouths. There’s just no way.
OK, that said, I will likely rent “Shelter” from Blockbuster again later this week. I’ve got one of those deals where I pay $22 a month and can rent as many movies from my local store one at a time. I would buy the film, or just keep it and say my dog ate it, which happens a lot, but I don’t want to get tired of watching it as I have my other favorite movies. They include “Tank Girl,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” “Four Brothers,” “Serenity,” the first three hours of “The Thorn Birds,” and a handful of others. I can watch these movies, but only if I’m doing so with someone who hasn’t seen them before, ‘cause I’m watching them through their eyes. I don’t want “Shelter” to join that list, though it might be inevitable.
Yeah, that Blockbuster deal is nice. It’s given me the opportunity to watch many of Rowe’s other movies. “The Insatiable” was so thankless a role. Yeah, “Shelter” is his “Dynasty.” I expect bigger things from him henceforth. On her site, J.D. Salvatore says Rowe was cast only after another actor chickened out at playing gay at the last minute. I wonder if she, or anyone, could imagine anyone else playing Shaun.
