Retake

Text by Harald Olausen

"Retake is a 2016 American LGBT drama directed by Nick Corporon and starring Tuc Watkins and Devon Graye. It premiered at San Francisco's Frameline Festival in 2016 at the historic Castro theatre. The mysterious Jonathan (Tuc Watkins) travels to San Francisco and looks to hire a male escort. He initially hires Scotty (Kit Williamson) and it does not go well. He returns to the streets and finds an unnamed hustler (Devon Graye). After a night of sex and polaroids, Jonathan offers to pay the escort to accompany him on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, no questions asked. Eager to leave his own life behind, the escort accepts and the two start out on a road trip through the American Southwest."

Among gay indie films about love, broken relationships, and the loss and recovery of love, the American Retake is a rare treat in its genre, as if John Cassavetes (1929–1989) had risen from the dead and returned to film, or an American equivalent of Happy Together had been made. The moving film tells about the compelling prison of memories. However, the film is almost unknown among the general public, as it is not suitable for distribution in large cinemas but is a favorite of international LGBTQI film festivals. Its most interesting tension is built on the friction between the wishes and the pricks of conscience of both main actors and the realization that life is not a dream after all and a dream is not life but something else entirely.

Aging businessman Jonathan (Tuc Watkins) has returned to San Francisco after a long absence. He is looking for a brunette in the gay whore street, who would be temperamental and smell just the right perfume. In the end, she finds what she's looking for in the flirtatious young Adam (Devon Gray). Jonathan makes a bold proposition to Adam: If the young man agrees to accompany Jonathan on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, he will get double the price per night for the days of the trip compared to what he earns as a gay hooker, plus another thousand dollars. But he has to act the part, pretending to be Brandon all the way. Adam would like to quit hooking up, and he hopefully says yes.

During the journey, the men fall in love with each other. Or fall in love? The businessman misses his memories and Adam a safe shoulder to lean on. But Adam can't get rid of his role as a pleaser. The relationship is fractious and tense. There is an invisible danger in the air, unpredictability and the expectation of something terrible happening soon. Love is a contract and it has a price in dollars. The businessman wants to dream and get lost in his memories in a manipulative and obsessive game he directs. Adam counters and wakes his lover from his self-pitying slumber. The wounded humanity of the main characters of the film aroused empathy in the viewers. Based on the intimate complexities of a genuine human relationship, the film was, according to one commentator, a mesmerizing journey of heartbreak and self-discovery. But what kind of journey? Horrible and scary.

Adam has to play Jonathan's lost love, but he would like to fall in love with the man himself. So Adam is Jonathan's false memory of Brendan, and Jonathan is Adam's imagination of love, and both are, as it were, hollow twin beings of non-existent love. After all, love – both unhappy and happy – is often only in memories. Love is self-righteous pleasure and selfishly built by the experiencer from different pieces. But the movie doesn't have that. There are only bleak polaroid photos of Brendan, and Jonathan's equally empty lies in a brutal world where nothing is what they hope it is. The reception of the film has been overflowing. Some say it's the best gay movie ever made. That's strongly said by a gay man who knows almost all the gay films shown...