This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
We meet two very vocal, different yet similar individuals. Lynn is the owner of Biloxi bar, who has been with her wife for a long time and seeing Trump get into the office feels that America needs a big mirror to reveal its deep divisions and backwards momentum. Meanwhile, Shawn, a black person, is owner of Club Xclusive in Hattiesburg, facing severe racism and homophobia from locals. Lynn is working to organize the first Gulf Coast Pride, while Shawn is setting up what she calls Unapologetic Black Gay Pride. Both want to create an event where queer people can gather and feel good about the future. Amid endless red tape and other obstacles, including an invasion of spring breakers, neither Lynn nor Shawn are the kind of people to back down. Lynn helped rebuild Biloxi after it was levelled by Hurricane Katrina; Shawn refuses to give up after harsh police treatment. Specifics about the size and scope of both events aren't laid out in detail. Supposedly, those things don't matter because the ultimate point is to create something where gay people can congregate and feel hopeful about the future.
As is the case with most documentaries, this is also shown through multiple interviews. A good chunk of time is spent on interviewing a trans female working in Biloxi bar and her struggles. Also a good chunk of time is spend in understanding the aftermath's of hurricane Katrina on the community. This is important, because when these people are trying to have their pride march, there is a looming danger of another hurricane on the horizon. The film gets a little bogged down in detail, for example tracing the personal struggles as Lynn and Shawn try to get their events off the ground. And it mentions but kind of skips over Mississippi's so-called "religious freedom" law, which legalizes discrimination. I was hoping we will get to see a lot more of actual pride preparation. Celebration and the event; meanwhile what we get to see feels like more BTS of the whole event and the drama. By no means, I am trivializing the issues that surface, because the struggles are real, but as always I get a little disappointed when the title of a film and the summary promises you one thing but delivers something different. (3.5/10)
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