It is a rare thing indeed for me to watch a movie I’ve never ever heard of before.  All movie dates must (although not necessarily meticulously) involve some degree of research (Who’s the director?  Who’s the star?  Have I seen their previous work?  Did I like it?)

That I found a copy of 1998’s Bedrooms and Hallways lying around was as uncommon as it gets since I cannot, for the life of me, remember anything about the film.  At all.  I can’t even remember how the copy got there.   But since I was bored, I loaded it up, and hit play without even doing a quick Google search (see how adventurous I can be?).

The movie opens pretty much like most other films from the late nineties- with the main character, Leo (Kevin McKidd), having a rather contemplative walk down the street- complete with voice-over narration and all.  We learn that Leo, having come just from work, was looking forward to spending his thirtieth birthday quietly at home (preferably) alone.  It’s not that he’s socially inept; he’s pretty much thriving actually, with his two best friends—Tom Hollander’s flamboyant, if albeit a touch clichéd gay, Darren and Julie Graham’s sarcastic resident fag hag Angie.  Leo’s not a shy person by nature; he’s just suffering through a patch of your run-of-the-mill depression, brought upon by what I would call quite a rollercoaster of a love life.

His problems started when he (by Darren’s suggestion) joined a modern day “man club” (where men are allowed to be just men—feelings and all) facilitated by Simon Callow’s fantastically kooky New Age guru Keith.  Things then take a turn for the confusing when Leo shares to the group that he finds James Purefoy’s hunky Irish barman Brendan to be the most attractive out of their group.  Brendan’s advances towards Leo muddle things up since Brendan has proclaimed himself as straight as they can get from the get-go.  Add Jennifer Ehle’s Sally who is the ex-girlfriend of both (Leo’s first and Brendan’s last) and you have a very good picture of a real-life modern day bisexuality conundrum.   There’s also a very good story on the side with Hugo Weaving playing Jeremy, a morally decrepit real estate agent wooing Darren into doing the nasty inside the houses he’s selling.

Rose Troche directs the film and I must say she handled the material quite elegantly.  The story could’ve easily become very messy and tacky and cheap but since the treatment was very light and airy, you as an audience just sort of go with the ridiculousness.  And that’s the thing with this movie, it goes straight for the off-the-kilter crazy but you don’t really mind it at all.  Personally I don’t think the film could’ve been made at a better time because the dark humor of the 90’s provided the perfect atmosphere to ground the plot to reality; the 80’s definitely weren’t ready for this type of material and had this film been done anytime past the new millennium, I’m sure it would’ve been hateful it because for sure it would’ve been over thought to death.

Anyway, after seeing the movie in full I realize that a friend from college recommended the film to me sometime last year.  See, she and I went nuts with HBO’s Rome when we were in school together and I gotta say, it was a shock to see younger versions of Lucius Vorenus and Mark Antony going at it like lust-ridden teenagers.  But those scenes weren’t anywhere near as shocking as the ones that involved mighty Elrond of Rivendell (Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings) handcuffing prissy little Mr. Collins (2005’s Pride and Prejudice) to the bed.

Rating: 7.5/10 stars, mostly because of the ending.