Tru Loved (2008) Movie Review

Tru Loved tells the story of a high school girl named Gertrude “Tru,” who leads a less than normal life. She is the daughter of 2 fathers and 2 mothers, both of her biological parents are gay. This was all fine for Tru for most of her childhood, when her mothers, the parents she lives with, still lived in San Francisco, but circumstances have inspired them to move to the conservative suburbs, forcing Tru to start at a new school and find new friends.

Tru, wanting to become a member of the popular kids, meets and befriends football team quarterback Lodell “Lo,” who unbeknownst to Tru or any of their friends is a closeted homosexual. Worried about his sexuality’s effect on his ability to play football, Lo convinces Tru to play the part of his beard, or as they put it, his Katie (in reference to Katie Holmes, suggesting that Tom Cruise is in fact gay). Tru reluctantly agrees, but is put off when Lo and the rest of the “cool” kids, consisting of Lo, Manny, and a pair of vapid girls, make fun of the school’s openly gay student, Walt.

Tru decides to befriend Walt and they collectively decide to start the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance to promote well being between the conflicting sexualities. The duo find that this is not such a popular idea and struggle to find school backing, despite the both the principal and several other teachers obvious homosexual inclinations. Eventually the club does get started and finds moderate success in its first meeting. Tru also finds a new romantic interest in a boy, who was previously assumed to be gay himself, named Trevor. It turns out that much like Tru, the man who raised him, his uncle is a gay activist, Daniel (Bruce Vilanch), having written several books on the subject.

Tru and Trevor begin dating, but agree to keep their real relationship secret so as to not spoil Tru and Lo’s fake relationship. This become increasingly hard to Tru as Lo continues to gay bash and reacts to Tru’s open minded inclinations. Lo too finds his life difficult as he feels he cannot come out to his best friend, Manny or his mother and grandmother.

Meanwhile, Tru’s fathers arrive in town, having just commemorated their relationship by marrying in Canada. This inspires Tru’s mothers to have their own commitment ceremony. This ceremony provides the perfect back drop for the final showdown between Manny and the bigoted football coach, versus an ever expanding circle of homosexuals that includes teachers, never before seen high school kids, and a few celebrities. The end of the film, being the happy ending that it is, ends up becoming this enormous gay lovefest where 90% of the film’s cast ends up at the commitment party of Tru’s mothers’, all of whom are openly gay.

Tru Loved is a clever concept with good intentions but the end film falls flat. Tru starts off as an interesting character but she soon falls into the background when the viewer begins to realize that everyone else has larger problems. Tru ends up simply being the boring straight girl who hands out with more interesting people than herself. Perhaps Tru’s true purpose is simply to defy the notation of environment determining one’s sexuality, being a straight girl raised by four gay parents, although there are some inclinations that Tru may have some same sex tendencies.

The Lodell and Walt dynamic with the juxtaposition of Manny in the outskirts proves to be a much more interesting story, and does seem to become the primary purpose of the film with horrific stereotypes like the ultra conservative football coach, the ditzy cheerleader, the cool hipster rebel, and the painfully effeminate gay males roles thrown in to comprise the body of the film.

All in all, Tru Loved tends to fall short in its message, primarily due to its complete loss of a voice by the end of the film.