Make the Yuletide Gay

I don't write about films nearly as much as I'd like to. Then again, I don't write enough about a lot of things that I'd like to, mostly because I run out of time before I can and then the moment has passed. For that matter, it's hard to find time to watch a film sometimes, especially when you've got a backlog of TV shows building up on your Tivo to catch up with (I'm several episodes behind on Melrose Place, for instance, even though I'm dying to see Amanda's return!).

Still, I'm going to try and write more often about the films I see, if they're worth writing about, which means that they'll either be movies I completely loved or really, really hated.

So, with that in mind, I wanted to write about a new gay themed holiday film that I've just seen, called Make the Yuletide Gay. It was written and directed by Rob Williams, and I'd seen two of his three earlier films, Long-Term Relationship and Back Soon (the third, 3-Day Weekend, is in my Netflix queue). Both of those earlier films were fairly enjoyable, but I preferred Long-Term Relationship to Back Soon. Neither of them, if I'm being honest, really set my world on fire though. Still, I've seen some truly awful gay themed films and I wouldn't include either of them in that category at all.

I'd heard good things about Make the Yuletide Gay and I'd liked Williams' earlier films enough to check it out. I have to say that I'm really glad I did, because it is an incredibly sweet film that I truly loved. I watched it last week via Netflix and liked it so much that I bought a copy for myself, which arrived in the mail today. I've now watched it a second time and I loved it just as much as I did on the first viewing.

The plot of the movie is that college senior Olaf 'Gunn' Gunnunderson, who is out and proud in his life on campus and who shares a dorm room with his boyfriend Nathan, heads home for Christmas with his parents in Wisconsin. In doing so, he also goes back into the closet, since he's never come out to them.

Nathan is supposed to be spending Christmas with his cold, upper crust East Coast parents who disapprove of his sexual orientation, but who in true WASP fashion choose to just never speak about it. At the last minute, though, Nathan's parents go on a holiday cruise without him and he decides to surprise Gunn in Wisconsin, not realizing that his boyfriend isn't out.

Nathan agrees to play along with Gunn's charade, but urges him at the same time to come out, pointing out how cool his parents are and how much they obviously love him. Gunn isn't certain how they'd react, though, and can't face the idea of losing them.

I won't give too much else away about the plot, except to say that Gunn and Nathan's relationship is incredibly sweet and completely made the film for me. There are several small moments between them over the course of the film that just made the romantic in me come to life, things like Gunn taking Nathan's hand at a party (even if he does cover their joined hands with a pillow so that no one sees!) and Nathan mouthing the words "I love you" to Gunn at a pivotal moment.

The film also has a good supporting cast, with Derek Long as Gunn's absent minded, pothead college professor of a father and Kelly Keaton as his cheery, Christmas obsessed mother. Heck, it even has Nellie Oleson herself, actress Alison Arngrim from Little House on the Prairie, as the somewhat slutty next door neighbor.
Both of the lead actors, Keith Jordan as Gunn and Adamo Ruggiero as Nathan, did a fantastic job. I'd never heard of Keith Jordan before, but he's very good and I hope we see him in many more films. He was the perfect choice to play the conflicted Gunn and his performance truly impressed me. He's also pretty hot.

I had heard of Adamo Ruggiero before, having read about his coming out on AfterElton. Adamo played a gay teen on the Canadian show Degrassi: The Next Generation for several years before coming out in real life. Even though I knew who he was, though, I'd never actually seen him in anything before this.

Adamo is completely adorable. I think the phrase 'cute as a button' must have been coined with him in mind. He was very likable as Nathan, perfect in the scenes that called for him to react to Gunn's comically offbeat parents. I thought he also did a great job in the few scenes that called for Nathan to show a more serious side.

The movie is full of playful puns (revolving, for instance, around things like whether Nathan or Gunn prefer the top or bottom bunk) and similar enjoyable silliness, but overall it's just an incredibly sweet movie about love. It's a film with a lot of heart.

I know that it just became a holiday classic for me!