East Side Story

On this freezing cold (relatively, yeah--but it is cold out there!) day, I decided to watch one of my random movies from the library, settling on East Side Story, which I'd never heard of, but it looked interesting if not great. Plus it's from the library so it's free, so I check out way more movies than I ever watch, and watch just a few minutes of some and return most unwatched. But this seemed a good afternoon for East Side Story, so I went for it, and I watched the whole thing, all 88 minutes of it.

Trailer...

A totally cute gayboy movie, this film has more to it than that. It tackles--without them being the focus or the premise--gentrification, assimilation, and specifically gentrification by gays, in this case (but not only in this case), rich white gay men. However, of course, many of us don't fit into just one category. We can be queer and part of the community being gentrified, for example.

It has a lot of great moments, including the exchange between the closeted gayboy who tells his grandmother he has something important to tell her. She totally already knows he's gay, and she's just glad he's finally going to tell her--but then he tells her something else, and she has to reduce and shift her excitement hugely. None of us have ever been in that position. Ever.

But I think the best part in this sweet but honest and true little movie is the closing shot, which is a Latino nanny holding the Chinese baby adopted by white couple Adam and Steve, with the proud fathers saying goodbye and the nanny and their daughter watching them go.