Breakfast with Scot (***)

You could program an interesting film festival centered around stories of people getting saddled with other people’s unwanted children and learning to love them. They come as arty as Central Station and as mainstream as kid comedy The Game Plan. This movie comes in arty trappings—it’s about two gay guys, and it’s Canadian—but is actually pretty mainstream, and broadly comedic. The star is Tom Cavanaugh, onetime star of TV’s Ed, here playing a onetime Toronto Maple Leafs star who plays down his sexuality. He’s what the personal ads call “straight acting.”

The eleven-year-old orphan he ends up with (a creditable Noah Bernett), on the other hand, is more the get-beat-up-on the schoolyard sort of gay. He likes make-up and clothes, not so much hockey. He’s so gay that you wonder exactly why he hasn’t already learned to tone it down just for self-preservation. Even in liberal Toronto, trying to kiss your male classmate doesn’t fly. The sexuality of Cavanaugh’s character, on the other hand, is so toned down that you can hardly believe he actually, you know, sleeps with men. (Costar Ben Shenkman doesn’t have much to do, since there’s no focus on their relationship.) Still, his niche in the gay world—out, but as quietly as possible—is common enough. He is actually a perfect stand-in for straight people watching the movie, and much of the humor comes from this. The reaction to his new ward is exactly what I’d expect from most straight parents—embarrassment followed by attempts at reform (of the boy, not the parent).

The drama is about when the boy’s ne’er-do-well guardian will come to get him, and what will happen then, and everything there’s what you’d expect. If the subject matter (handled extremely chastely) and overly earnest ending aren’t deterrents, this actually makes a decent family film.

IMDB link

viewed 7/18/08 at at Prince Music Theater (Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival) and reviewed 7/19/08