Friday, July 29, 2022

Delayed Reaction: Fire Island

Premise: Five friends go on their yearly vacation for a week to Fire Island.

 


I have disappointingly little to say about this movie. It’s a good movie. I liked it. It’s a traditional RomCom about the gay community which is historically underserved by the genre. It hit all the right RomCom beats. I could certainly get into a larger discussion about the history of how hard it’s been to get LGBTQ+ movies made on a studio level with non-straight stars, but, well, there are people who could speak to that a lot better. And I’d rather focus on how nice it was to watch a movie that’s not about the potential traumas of being gay. It’s not a coming out story. It’s not an AIDS story. It’s a pretty joyful movie about friend and finding love. I like that.

 

This movie is really funny, often in clever ways. While I like the bigger jokes like the recurring bit where the same houseguest keeps forgetting who Joel Kim Booster is when he visits, the jokes that worked the best for me were often stray lines or super specific bits. The Marissa Tomei joke destroyed me.

 

I like the cast of actors who I recognized more than I knew. Of course Bowen Yang is excellent and I know him from SNL. Other than Margaret Cho in a supporting role, I really didn’t know anyone else. I was familiar with Joel Kim Booster as a Twitter presence but I don’t recall the roles I’ve seen him in before. Most of the cast has at least one thing I’ve seen them in before, but it’s often something like seeing Matt Rogers in a Search Party episode playing the role “Gay Man”. So, I’m happy to see them all get more substantial roles. They’re all quite funny.

 

My only issue with the movie was that Booster’s narration was a little intrusive at times. I do appreciate it at times for shorthand like giving some character backstories or giving some context for an activity at Fire Island. It’s hard to find the balance between being helpful and hand-holding. It’s a little redundant in places though.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

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