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Starring Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack. When people come up to me and try to affix a label to me, I pay them no regard. And generally speaking, this is what people do. If someone were to come up to you on the street and tell you that you were a fireman, you'd probably laugh, because you have some kind of a sense of who you are and what you do, and move on. Thus, it was with a complete sense of disgust and disbelief that I watched Kevin Kline's character in In & Out question his own sexuality after being outed on national TV.Kline stars as Howard Brackett, a high school English teacher working in rural Indiana (is there any other kind?). On the night of the Oscars, while accepting an Academy Award for best actor, one of Brackett's former students outs him by first thanking him and finishing with, "and he's gay." Brackett's reaction to this news is something along the lines of, "I am?" To quote Seinfeld, Brackett was outed, and he wasn't even in. Then, as the obligatory media circus hits Brackett's Indiana town to learn more about the man responsible for helping the latest Hollywood celeb hit the big time, Brackett begins to wonder if he is, in fact, gay, much to the chagrin of his fiancee, played the delightful Joan Cusack. There were a myriad of problems with this movie. While confusion about one's sexual identity is a valid social issue now, director Frank Oz and screenwriter Scott Frank trivialize the matter by portraying all those involved in the film-with the exception of Cusack-as stereotypical shells of 'real' people. Bob Newhart is the old-school principal who refuses to believe in homosexuality, at times barely even allowing himself to say the word 'homosexual' out loud, Tom Selleck the gay love interest, and Debbie Reynolds and Wilford Brimley the shocked but supportive parents. No new insights were given into the plight of those struggling with self-recognition, granted though this was a light comedy, and Frank's moments of supposed humor, especially when dealing with the high school students' reaction towards the newly gay Kline and their conversations about "in holes and out holes" an abomination in closed mindedness and stupidity, even by Indiana standards. The initial premise of this movie-that Brackett was wrongfully declared gay to the world during the Oscar telecast-was interesting. Brackett's attempt to act in the fashion society deems as masculine were humorous, yes, but the majority of this material was too fluffy, contrived, and neatly tied together in the end to even vaguely resemble something that could have been called a poignant comedy. The other Gay, Indiana, High School Teacher Movie, The Opposite of Sex, benefited immeasurably from both its three-dimensional characters and actors who didn't think 'gay' was a character trait, two things In & Out most definitely did not possess. The light-hearted, feathery , all-is-well touch Oz used here worked wonderfully well in his '92 romantic comedy, Housesitter, but didn't quite gel with the story material here. For some reason, In & Out reminds me of that great Rodney Dangerfield exchange where he is introduced to a debutante at her own coming out party. "She just came out today," the debutante's proud mother beamed. Rodney took one look at the debutante, his eyes bulged, he shook his head and he finally replied, "Put her back in, she's not done yet." Of the two Gay, Indiana, High School Teacher Movies, see The Opposite of Sex.
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