This one falls into that darker corner of gay cinema. There was real potential buried in here, but the execution feels so flat that at points it plays out more like a filmed stage play than an actual movie. It's a dark psychological drama built around a street hustler confessing to a brutal, confusing murder of his own lover. Black and white flashback sequences do a solid job laying out the details of what happened, but the real focus stays on the dialogue and the writing itself. Right at the start, a young hustler has already killed his male lover Claude. Three days go by before he calls the police to turn himself in for the murder. But instead of just reporting it somewhere ordinary, he actually summons the police and the local press directly into a judge's private chambers. Yves has keys to the place, which tracks given what he does for a living, but having the press waiting right outside makes the whole scene look like some elaborate blackmail scheme against the judge. The ...
I know most people would be surprised but I really didn't know that the title of the film was derived from 'The Wizard of Oz' (not my fault since I haven't seen the latter). The film sets the tone right from the beginning and follows its characters throughout on what they have to deal with by loss of one of their most beloved persons in life. Sara, a beautiful unmarried young woman and her mother Natalie have been very close to the extent that the mother likes to know about each and every single thing that is going on in her life. She intrusively calls here daughter constantly with the mutual greeting 'Surrender, Dorothy'. As they do every summer, Sara is accompanying her best friends - gay playwright Adam who is closest to her, Adam's current date Shawn, and married couple Maddy and Peter with their infant son - to a house in the Hamptons. The group seems jolly until a trip to the local ice creamery by Adam and Sara results in an auto accident which kills Sara. When Natalie receives the phone call that Sara is dead she immediately comes to the Hamptons where her overbearing personality and grief create friction among Sara's friends. Everyone hates her and don't understand why is she there and what she wants. Slowly but surely Natalie uncovers secrets about each of them, thriving on talking about Sara as though doing so would bring her to life. The hardest is trying to get to like Adam who undoubtedly was close to Sara in terms that even Natalie wasn't. Natalie's thirst for truth at any cost results in major changes among the group prominent being the fact that Natalie discovers Sara was pregnant and final nail in coffin is when she reads in Sara's diary how desperately Sara wanted to get out of her mother's shadow and be a free person. It is only through the binding love of the departed Sara that they all eventually come together.
Best performance comes in from Natalie here with a balance between comedy and drama. The film had poignant moments when it is so hard for Adam to accept Sara's absence when clearly she was the only one whom he ever loved. I felt for his character. The other friends were alright. I love that how Adam's muse Shawn would use him to get introduced to the directors and stuff.
Overall a good entertainer which sticks with you even after it has finished. (5/10)
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