I Think I Do
USA 1997
Reviewed by Rob White
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Bob, Brendan, Sarah, Matt, Carol and Eric all share an off-campus apartment at George Washington University in Washington DC. Bob is in love with his room-mate Brendan. At a Valentine's Day party, Bob makes a clumsy pass at Brendan and is punched, then sleeps with Sarah. Five years later, the former flatmates gather again for Matt and Carol's wedding. Bob is accompanied by his soap-star lover Sterling Scott. Sarah still carries a torch for Brendan but, unknown to anyone else, Brendan has realised he's gay. After the wedding, Brendan declares his love for Bob, while elsewhere a drunken Sterling announces he and Bob are going to 'marry'. Having been accidentally locked out of their room by Sterling, Bob ends up sleeping with Brendan. At brunch the next morning Bob's love-bite gives the game away. After some soul-searching and discussions, Bob and Brendan eventually leave happily together.
Review
I Think I Do barely contains enough material for a 25-minute sitcom pilot. The central thread of the film concerns the tribulations of Bob, who having been rebuffed by his college room-mate Brendan finds out five years later at a wedding that Brendan is now gay and wants to wind back the clock. But Bob is going out with soap-star Sterling Scott. How will this mélange resolve itself? Since this is a feel-good, gay-affirmative film, and Sterling is too smug even for Bob's breathtakingly vapid group of friends, there's not much suspense.
Yet this lack isn't compensated for elsewhere. A key song comes from The Partridge Family, but it is never reinvented or allowed enough space to become perversely agreeable (as 'California Dreamin' was in Beautiful Thing and Chungking Express). Rare stabs at visual invention (for instance, a descriptive intertitle) are half-hearted and seem hackneyed. There is some comic characterisation - the bride's stoned sister and fractious parents, the born-again Sarah who also pursues Brendan, and the straight-talking, tolerant Aunt Alice - but these fall very flat, never testing let alone threatening decorum. The lead actors, by the same token, are wearisomely benevolent.
A comparison with the sitcom Friends demands to be made, since I Think I Do revolves around six people in their 20s trying to cope with life and relationships. The dazzling writing and performances in Friends always veil an underlying desperation. Should the energy of the talk ever subside, all that will be left is people living in a depressurised bubble. This scary edge to all the talk is reminiscent of the best screwball comedy, which director Brian Sloan (who made the short Pool Life) claims unconvincingly to have tried to emulate here. Friends wouldn't work without its dangerous subtext, but I Think I Do forsakes this in favour of teenage fantasies. What made Brendan decide that all he ever wanted was Bob? He was worried that, unless it was Bob, he would never "find someone to stay up all night [with], bullshitting about bad TV."
Perhaps the makers of I Think I Do set out to score a political-generic point by letting gay characters take over a wedding movie. But to do this necessarily involves relinquishing the tension which conventionally pertains in the thematic conjunction of homosexuality and marriage. It's simply boring when there's no friction in this situation, when a gay love triangle is nothing more than a genial distraction for the wedding guests. Such a strategy reduces everything to an anodyne, 'we're all the same' view, and says nothing worthwhile about sexuality or personality. I Think I Do makes one grateful for the subversively genteel gay characters of Four Weddings and a Funeral and the estimable My Best Friend's Wedding. And as Rose Troche's forthcoming Bedrooms and Hallways shows, far more enjoyable entertainment is to be had when the poles of sexual behaviour are juggled around so that orientation becomes an unpredictable bond between people rather than a label. In that film gay characters are neither stereotyped nor, as in I Think I Do, just further examples of a banal norm.
Credits
- Producer
- Lane Janger
- Screenplay
- Brian Sloan
- Director of Photography
- Milton Kam
- Editor
- François Keraudren
- Production Designer
- Debbie Devilla
- © I Think I Do LLC
- Production Companies
- Strand Releasing presents in association with Robert Miller/House of Pain Productions & Danger Filmworks/Sauce Entertainment & Daryl Roth Productions a Lane Janger production
- Executive Producers
- Robert Miller
- Marcus Hu
- Jon Gerrans
- Daryl Roth
- Line Producer
- Scott Hornbacher
- Associate Producers
- Aida Ashenafi
- Darci Carlton
- Bettina O'Mara
- Sauce Entertainment Executives
- Marcus Englefield
- Matthew Goldberg
- Production Supervisor
- Marlene Arvan
- Production Co-ordinator
- Livia Monte
- Production Manager
- Exile Ramirez
- Location Manager
- Nathaniel Bonini
- Post-production
- Supervisor - Post It:
- Joe Glenn
- Co-ordinator:
- Blake Baldwin
- Production Consultant
- Charles Lum
- Assistant Director
- Matthew Cavaliero
- Script Supervisor
- Molly Maguire
- Casting
- Stephanie Corsalini
- Art Directors
- Matteo De Cosmo
- Wedding Reception:
- Cathy Cook
- Costume Designers
- Kevin Donaldson
- Victoria Farrell
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Jennifer Marony
- Make-up
- Kim Behrens
- Additional:
- Gabriella Voigt
- Hair Stylist
- Kara Crean
- Titles
- Sal Mallimo
- Opticals
- Videart Opticals
- Mel Wolpin
- George Apuzzo
- Additional Music
- Brahm Wenger
- Music Supervisor
- Gerry Gershman
- Music Co-ordinators
- Melissa Blanco
- Brian Marshall
- Soundtrack
- "Sick of Myself" by/performed by Matthew Sweet; "Employee of the Month" by Chris Dyas, Mary Ellen Leahy, performed
- by Trona; "I Think I Love You" by Tony Romeo, performed by David Cassidy and The Partridge Family; "Deck the Halls" performed by Geolyn; "Do Ya, Do Ya Wanna" by Adrian Peritore, Arlene Matza, Jon Jackson, performed by Pete Zappalla and the Slices; "When I'm Loving You" by/arranged by Michele Vice, Tommy Page; "Windy" by Ruthann Friedman; "I Can't Get Through" by Greg Braillier, John Finseth, performed by The Tearaways; "Yankee Doodle" arranged by Erik Markman; "Let's Do It" by Jamie Dunlap, performed by Molly Pascutti; "Leaving This World" by/performed by Ivan Koutikov; "Just the Fax Ma'am" by Luther Jordan; "Tonight" by/arranged by Michele Vice, Peter Roberts, performed by Lisa Frazier; "Sex Dance" by/arranged by Michele Vice, Peter Roberts, performed by Lisa Frazier, Chic Frelix; "Everybody Go" by Ronald Paul Curcio, performed by Sub-Sonic; "Atlantis" by Sebastian; "Wedding March (Bridal Chrous)" by Richard Wagner, performed by Ivan Koutikov; "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn, performed by Ivan Koutikov; "Flute Quartet, K 298, Minuet" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arranged by Les Peel; "You", "Liar's Moon", "Icy Blue", "Back to Love" by Julius Robinson, Michael Sherwood, performed by Patrick Tuzzolino; "Telling the Dice How to Roll" by Julius Robinson, Michael Sherwood, Patrick Tuzzolino, performed by Patrick Tuzzolino; "I Think I Love You" by Tony Romeo, performed by Voice of the Beehive; "Switching Back and Forth Again" by/performed by Cagnet; "Hindu Warlord" by Alex Riatta; "The Big Strip" by Cy Payne; "Somebody Wants to Love You" by Mike Appel, Jim Cretecos, Wes Farrell, performed by David Cassidy and The Partridge Family; "Only a Moment Ago" by Terry Cashman, T.P. West, performed by David Cassidy and The Partridge Family; "Brand New Me" by Wes Farrell, Eddie Singleton, performed by David Cassidy and The Partridge Family
- Sound Mixers
- Production:
- Robert Taz Larrea
- Washington DC:
- Rocky Reid
- Mixer
- Ted Gannon
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Dan Kramer
- Sound Editors
- Rob Montrone
- Sonny Calderon
- Consultant
- Washington DC:
- Georgette Hayden
- Cast
- Alexis Arquette
- Bob
- Guillermo Diaz
- Eric
- Jamie Harrold
- Matthew Edward Lynch
- Christian Maelen
- Brendan
- Marni Nixon
- Aunt Alice
- Lauren Vélez
- Carol Anita Gonzalez
- Tuc Watkins
- Sterling Scott
- Patricia Mauceri
- Ms Rivera
- Marianne Hagan
- Sarah
- Maddie Corman
- Beth
- Elizabeth Rodriguez
- Celia Gonzalez
- Dechen Thurman
- wedding photographer
- Jordan Roth
- caterer/Sterling admirer
- Mateo Gomez
- Mr Gonzalez
- Arden Myrin
- Wendy
- Richard Salamanca
- Father Paulson
- Leonard Berdick
- Mr McPherson
- Chris John
- Tracks bartender
- Lane Janger
- wedding bartender
- Anthony Patellis
- band leader
- Carlos Rodriguez
- drummer
- Nathaniel Bonini
- porter
- Gabriella Bring
- Sterling admirer
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Millivres Multimedia
- 8,454 feet
- 93 minutes 56 seconds
- Colour/Prints by
- Technicolor