Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

Adam & Steve

Takes on same issues as Brokeback , but with a more optimistic attitude

By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | January 28, 2010

2.5 Stars

ADAM AND STEVE: A very different kind of 'gay cowboy movie'

For the time being, any gay romance movie requires the Brokeback reference. Like Ang Lee, Craig Chester, who wrote, directed, and stars in Adam & Steve, deals with the strain and obstacles facing gay men. But where Brokeback ends in hopelessness, Adam & Steve takes an optimistic stance on the state of gay love, and it does so with warmth, charm, and absurd slapstick silliness. The story begins in the coke-glam world of 1987 New York. Adam (Chester), in goth regalia, meets Steve (Malcolm Gets), with frosted hair and glitter. The two head home together; there’s a messy accident fueled by cocaine cut with baby aspirin; Steve disappears into the night. Seventeen years later, in a rattled post–September 11 New York, they begin a romance in earnest, unaware they’ve met before. As ex-obese Rhonda, Parker Posey stands out with typical blistering wit. She pairs off with Steve’s goofball roommate Michael (Saturday Night Live’s Chris Kattan), but their romance is nowhere near as endearing or believable as Adam and Steve’s.

Related: Elsa y Fred | Elsa + Fred, Catch and Release, Something New, More

Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Movies, Ang Lee, More

| More

More Information

Watch the trailer for Adam & Steve (QuickTime)

ARTICLES BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN

ON CARPENTRY AND COLLEGE | October 20, 2011
Age 30, I quit the Phoenix and ended up with a job as an apprentice to a carpenter. Sawing, chiseling, hammering, nail-gunning, tiling, sanding, slotting, framing, hauling, measuring, and sweeping are less obvious outcomes of an undergraduate career in the liberal arts. College, in strange and unexpected ways, prepared me for this sort of work. And in others, did not prepare me at all.

PHDISASTERS | April 27, 2011
I knew a man pursuing a PhD in literature. His dissertation had to do with humor as a form of dissent in 20th-century literature. And how enthused he was at first! How passionate and excited.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S THE PALE KING | April 13, 2011
All I can do is tell you how I read the book.

THE HOUSE THAT HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG BUILT | February 25, 2011
Andre Dubus III collected me at the Newburyport train station last month when the snow piles were already high. We stopped first for a coffee for the road; he asked all the questions: siblings, hometown, are you married?

DON'T BE AN IDIOT | January 27, 2011
We're all idiots when we're 18. We're all idiots for the first half of our 20s, and longer, for some. By saying so, we're not trying to insult anyone.