Gay, thirtysomething and, in his words, “terminally alone, Howie (Bowen Yang) has based all his thus far unrealised ideals of romance on the heterosexual romantic comedies he grew up watching on screen: opposites attracting, meeting cute and making mad dashes for each other at the airport. “Shit like that doesn’t happen in real life,” counsels his best friend Noah (Joel Kim Booster), though it’s not as if Howie needs reminding – he just wants “the romcom stuff” anyway.
Andrew Ahn’s sunny gay buddy movie Fire Island negotiates that fundamental conflict in its characters while also falling prey to it as a film. Mapping conventionally cheesy romantic comedy beats on to less Hollywood-dictated homosexual terrain, it also aims to deliver some tough truths about the modern gay dating scene between the sweetened sunset smooches and all’s-well-that-ends-well optimism of sundry past vehicles for Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan. The result, like those films, is more aspirational than it is convincing.
