Doubly delicious: crowd-pleaser Big Eden celebrates its DVD release with a two-disc set that's got everything from commentaries to recipes.

Big Eden * Written and directed by Thomas Bezucha * Starring Arye Gross, Eric Schweig, Tim DeKay, Louise Fletcher, and George Coe * Wolfe Video * $24.95 (DVD)

Marketed as the first gay-themed feature to be released in a double-disc set, the DVD of Thomas Bezucha's gentle romantic comedy Big Eden is packed with extras--including three short documentaries on the ideas behind it and the director's audio commentary--that largely serve to deepen Bezucha's generous sentiments and warm intentions.

An art-house hit last summer, Big Eden imagines a rural Montana community where bigotry and homophobia don't exist, where straight people plot to bring together two gay men--one a New Yorker visiting his dying grandfather, the other a shy Native American who runs the local general store. As Bezucha explains in the minidocumentary Inspiration on the bonus-features disc, the film was intended to show that "gay people come in all sorts of different colors and shapes and sizes." Instead of focusing on hot, young, good-looking men in an urban setting, Bezucha dared to look at older adults in Montana.

Indeed, it's fascinating to learn that Bezucha and his production team would encounter resistance in Montana's Glacier National Park over shooting such a genial film as Big Eden. In his commentary, Bezucha relays how, despite local pressure not to allow a movie with gay content to shoot there, a school board supported the filmmakers' use of a local high school, and he recalls how hard it was to secure a church for shooting some scenes. Also, being a low-budget film, Big Eden had to overcome plenty of finance-related hurdles: Scenes set in the summer were shot in the freezing cold of winter, and. one scene starts in the rain and ends in the sunshine because there was no time to wait for the right weather.

But these intensive details about shooting and the collection of deleted scenes--while offering illuminating insight into the process of independent filmmaking--serve to unravel the fragile fantasy of Big Eden. Knowing too much about a film so slight can undermine the affection you have for it. The deleted scenes are all redundant, as Bezucha notes, even saying during one montage that was never used, "I don't know about you, but I'm already a bit bored." Likewise, three outtakes "hidden" on the discs are unmemorable.

The Big Eden DVD release is nevertheless a comprehensive and ambitions effort, including master chef Charlie Palmer's recipes inspired by the dishes prepared in the film ("recipes to win someone over"), cast and crew biographies, and a wide-screen transfer.

Goodridge is U.S. editor of Screen International.

Read previous coverage of Big Eden in The Advocate at www.advocate.com