This is an Black gay film. Not white. Not yellow. Not brown. Black. That said Maurice Jamal, wrote acted (he plays Sherman's brother Eugene), directed, & produced this film, did a outstanding job of portraying a Black American family & their issues with homosexuality, which for Black Americans is more emotional than other races given the spiritual bond with church & home not seen in other races.
This film is about Sherman-Patrick's (he goes by Patrick in New York & his family calls him Sherman) life being upset when he gets news he's a father. Upon arriving home he is confronted with his bullheaded mother, loving sister, resentful brother, & his very self-righteous Aunt. His problems gets worse when his boyfriend follows him to Paris, GA looking for answers (whether Gabriel is his son, & why Patrick lied about his Mother, and his name). This film has some very good drama & comedy, but you have to 'get it'. Since this is not a white-gay, Latin-gay, or Asian-gay film, they won't get it. But I did.
The film starts off, yes, sloppy. We are indeed confused when see young Gabriel going to the airport, & then in the very next scene coming back home from the airport with Sherman. Jamal left the whole period of what happened when Gabriel was in New York until after Chapter 3 (the film's chapter, not the DVD). We, at first, are lead to believe that the family knows he's gay. This would certainty explain why he and his Mom argue when they meet after he brings Gabriel home. We even think he knows who Gabriel is for a minute or more. This makes the beginning feel very uneven, only because Jamal decides to tell us later what happened in New York rather than before which again made the beginning uneven. But when Sherman/Patrick finds Ryan, his boyfriend, on the porch of his childhood home waiting for him (Ryan thought he was having an affair with another man named Sherman), the cat is let out the bag & the film falls into place, & continues from there. There are other silly scenes, but this is the particular character of the director (Cookie's 'crunch', the triple 'gasp', Aunt Lettuce's four sons) and just shows he has unique sense of direction.
No film dealing with race and homosexuality is going to be 'perfect', but if it speaks to the intended audience than it accomplished it's goal. To Us (Blacks) we don't see Gay films as an excuse to get naked and swear. We explore the emotional-personal side of the lifestyle and not the sexual that most other races tend to focus on.
To quote a white gay person: "'eye candy' seems like too strong a statement considering (again) no love scene, no shirtless scene, not even a muscle shirt... So by any reasonable measure, this is not really a 'Gay' movie." Ahem, Blacks live very different lives, and most are very spiritual. So the Gay experience for us is very different from those of other races. This was Black Gay film; therefore, no sex, no shirtless hunks, no shirtless hunks having sex that's porn.
This film is about Sherman-Patrick's (he goes by Patrick in New York & his family calls him Sherman) life being upset when he gets news he's a father. Upon arriving home he is confronted with his bullheaded mother, loving sister, resentful brother, & his very self-righteous Aunt. His problems gets worse when his boyfriend follows him to Paris, GA looking for answers (whether Gabriel is his son, & why Patrick lied about his Mother, and his name). This film has some very good drama & comedy, but you have to 'get it'. Since this is not a white-gay, Latin-gay, or Asian-gay film, they won't get it. But I did.
The film starts off, yes, sloppy. We are indeed confused when see young Gabriel going to the airport, & then in the very next scene coming back home from the airport with Sherman. Jamal left the whole period of what happened when Gabriel was in New York until after Chapter 3 (the film's chapter, not the DVD). We, at first, are lead to believe that the family knows he's gay. This would certainty explain why he and his Mom argue when they meet after he brings Gabriel home. We even think he knows who Gabriel is for a minute or more. This makes the beginning feel very uneven, only because Jamal decides to tell us later what happened in New York rather than before which again made the beginning uneven. But when Sherman/Patrick finds Ryan, his boyfriend, on the porch of his childhood home waiting for him (Ryan thought he was having an affair with another man named Sherman), the cat is let out the bag & the film falls into place, & continues from there. There are other silly scenes, but this is the particular character of the director (Cookie's 'crunch', the triple 'gasp', Aunt Lettuce's four sons) and just shows he has unique sense of direction.
No film dealing with race and homosexuality is going to be 'perfect', but if it speaks to the intended audience than it accomplished it's goal. To Us (Blacks) we don't see Gay films as an excuse to get naked and swear. We explore the emotional-personal side of the lifestyle and not the sexual that most other races tend to focus on.
To quote a white gay person: "'eye candy' seems like too strong a statement considering (again) no love scene, no shirtless scene, not even a muscle shirt... So by any reasonable measure, this is not really a 'Gay' movie." Ahem, Blacks live very different lives, and most are very spiritual. So the Gay experience for us is very different from those of other races. This was Black Gay film; therefore, no sex, no shirtless hunks, no shirtless hunks having sex that's porn.