Just One Time is a movie about a New York City opposite-sex couple
who are very much in love and scheduled to marry in ten days. Prior to
exchanging vows before a priest, Anthony (played by Lane Janger, the
director and co-writer of the film) asks Amy to indulge one final
fantasy--a menage-a-trois involving another woman. But Amy, a clever
attorney, turns the tables by insisting that she be allowed to have a
similar menage with Anthony and another man. Anthony agrees, setting in
motion a complicated romp involving an effeminate Latino youth, a butch
lesbian who's in an on-again, off-again relationship, and
Anthony's ostensibly straight coworker and childhood friend, with
whom he'd jacked off at age thirteen. In the manner of a sitcom,
Just One Time lightheartedly exposes a range of issues--teenage
homosexuality, compulsory heterosexuality, bisexuality, fragile same-sex
relationships, closeted macho gays, and of course sexual obsession--and
does so while breaking down stereotypes with believable characters who
confront realistic dilemmas. In another sense, the film goes beyond
Freud's variation on Rousseau's thesis that all people are
born free (bisexual) but are everywhere in (heterosexual) chains. In a
post-Freudian world, where intolerance of same-sex attraction is
considered boorish by cosmopolitan people, the old cultural norms still
plague self-styled macho men. Should we feel sympathy for men who
checkmate one another into heterosexual identities, the film asks? Not
at all. Thanks to the gentle ribbing and clever hilarity of Just One
Time, we should expect that some day their moment of truth will come.
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback