Gray Matters DVD Review

Many films each year are made about gay and lesbian relationships, but nearly every time it is either an extremely depressing film about the hardships or an independent film with few respectable stars and shoddy camera work. Very few romantic comedies are made with gay or lesbian leads unless they are an independent film. There have been a few exceptions, and Gray Matters nearly falls in this category because of the impressive casting and well executed sequences, but there are definitely still many remaining ‘independent’ qualities within the script so that it teeters in-between.

Opening with a fantastic ballroom dance number between Sam (Thomas Cavanagh) and Gray (Heather Graham) followed by them jogging together and enjoying everyday life, these first scenes show them living together and acting as a couple might, which is the obvious conclusion to come to, and the one drawn by a new friend when they go out to dinner with a group. At this point we discover along with the new friend that they are actually brother and sister, just much closer than most siblings are. This is not to suggest any sexual dysfunction between them, but they rely on each other emotionally and use each other for companionship comfortably enough not to seek out romance. When they finally decide to try and date rather than being co-dependant it remains a team effort. Gray takes Sam to a dog park where he meets Charlie (Molly Shannon), a woman that is great enough for both of them to like her. The problem is that Sam and Gray do so much together, including the first date, that when it is time to leave them alone Gray has a hard time. It doesn’t help when after just one night Sam decides he is going to marry Charlie.

The marriage alone doesn’t seem to bother Gray much until on the night before the wedding she shares a drunken kiss with Charlie that only she remembers in the morning. Freaked out by what kissing her brother’s wife might mean Gray makes an emergency meeting with her therapist (Sissy Spacek) who enjoys therapy while doing an activity rather than in an office, and who tells Gray to start dating. Convinced that she is straight and just confused with her brother falling for someone, Gray starts dating, but has just as difficult a time picking a man as one of her quirks throughout the film is an inability to make a choice about anything. Usually instead of deciding she just chooses both, which is what she does with her love life as well, until she realizes she isn’t choosing the wrong man, but the wrong gender.

The rest of the film is an interesting examination of Gray’s acceptance of her sexuality, even when it hurts those around her at first. It is a thought provoking way to make coming out a struggle in a time when being gay has become much less of the taboo that it once was. Hollywood is well known for being liberal about these subjects and needed something more to encourage conflict in what could otherwise just be a simple film about a woman discovering her sexuality. Ingeniously the scenes at the beginning with Gray relying on her brother for plutonic companionship set up the delay of her realizations about herself.