The way we live now.

WTC View

* Written and directed by Brian Sloan * TLA Video

While George W. Bush squawks "9/11 !" like a demented Barbie doll every five minutes, the events of that fateful day continue to resist either easy verbal encapsulation or knee-jerk cinematic pigeonholing. To date we've had Michael Moore's controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 and Paul Greengrass's painfully tasteful United 93. Later this year Oliver Stone will weigh in with World Trade center. But now there's Brian Sloan's WTC View, and--unless Stone pulls off the truly unprecedented--it's doubtful you'll find a better drama made about the subject.

WTC View has one set--the bedroom, hall way, and kitchenette of a postage stamp-size apartment, and it's the hero's fear of what's outside that's at the heart of the story. Eric (Michael Urie) is a seemingly average gay New Yorker who's trying to find a roommate for an apartment that used to be advertised as having a view of the World Trade Center. As the action takes place in the weeks just after 9/11, we learn what happened to Eric and a variety of characters who play potential roommates and witness the perceptive low-key conversations Eric has with his best friend, Josie (Elizabeth Kapplow), who's starting to have second thoughts about bringing a child into this world.

Without making being gay the subject of the film, Sloan and the exceptionally talented Urie make Eric a full-blooded gay individual. And that's a genuine exception in an entertainment universe where the rule is to regard gayness as a gimmick to jerk audience laughs of tears. There's nothing gimmicky in WTC View, just something very true and very fine about who we all are--gay and straight--and the way we live now.