In & Out

Some years ago Hollywood dared for the first time to make a serious film about gay men and AIDS. "Philadelphia" was a serious melodrama - so serious that it became almost boring. Now the film capital has come so far that it dares to make a comedy in which the main character discovers he is gay, and in a rather peculiar fashion at that.

Kevin Kline plays the decent schoolteacher Howard Brackett, who is at long last to marry his colleague Emily Montgomery when the annual Oscar ceremony in Hollywood takes place and changes Howard's whole life. One of Howard's former pupils, Cameron Drake, wins an award for playing a homosexual soldier. In his acceptance speech, Drake singles out Howard's importance to him: "... and he is gay" are Drake's final words. This revelation causes a furore in the small town where Howard lives and works. At first Howard manages to convince his fiancée and his closest family that the revelation is untrue, but doubt lurks, in Howard himself too. He gets help from an unexpected quarter. TV journalist Peter Malloy, who is gay himself, convinces Howard that deep down he is too, but does Howard have the courage to come out? Howard has no wish whatsoever to break Emily's heart, and the principal of the high school where Howard teaches has made it clear that if Howard plays for the other team, he will be shown the door.

Meanwhile, Cameron Drake has learned how much harm he has done Howard, so he turns up in his old home town to plead Howard's cause in the big and slightly pathetic finale.

In & Out is a comedy that may deal with a still controversial subject, but shows no daring of its own. In & Out cannot offend anyone. The film's boldest touch is when Tom Selleck gives Kevin Kline a passionate kiss, but the scene is so comical that you forget the daring of its content. One of In & Out's qualities is that it does not stretch its slender story further than it can bear. Moreover, the scenes are well put together; not least, the dialogue is well written.