Griff (Daniel Chilson) is a college student who lives in a frat house with your typical college guys. Everyone is assumed to be straight, and the majority of brothers are. Griff wants to belong, but as a young gay man, he feels a certain amount of isolation. Because of his wanting to fit in, he remains in the closet despite the efforts of his boyfriend Pete (Don Handfield) to help him come to terms with his identity. Finally, a crisis forces Griff to take a stand for himself and for Pete. Yes, anyone who has seen more than a few gay-themed movies or TV shows will have seen this plot. But it is handled in such an honest and affecting way that you will forgive it.

What sets this movie apart are the character relationships. Griff's interesting relationships with best friend Todd (Niklaus Lange), with Todd's girlfriend Heather (Leslie Tesh), with fellow student Denetra (Linna Carter), and with Pete's father (sorry, I don't recall the actor's name) are what helps us to forgive the cliched elements of the plot. Of particular note are the relationships with Todd and with Pete's father. Their reactions to Griff's relationship with Pete are not what you have come to expect from coming out films. It makes for a refreshing change of pace, and writer/director John Keitel deserves credit for putting new spins on these stock characters.

The acting never really rises above college drama student level, but that works for a movie about college students. Chilson, Lange, Tesh, and Carter all act earnestly and come across as believable college kids in ways that technically-trained performers might not.

I do wish that the DVD had more to offer. The film is in 1.33:1 ration. I don't know if it has been panned and scanned, a matte removed, or originally shot for a TV screen. There is no commentary track. I would like to hear Keitel talk about the choices he made as writer and director. There is a "pictorial" soundtrack, meaning that the song's from the film can be accessed and played like a CD while images from the are played like a slideshow. As there were a couple songs that I particularly liked, I appreciated this feature and found myself wishing other films did the same thing.

Overall, it's a solid film and one that I have found myself watching several times. I recommend it to people who enjoyed "Get Real", "Edge of Seventeen", "trick", "Broadway Damage", and "Torch Song Trilogy."

Wolfe Video's full-screen (1.33:1) DVD transfer seems accurate and the colors are vivid, but the sound is a bit of a mess: The original mono track appears to have been ditched in favor of two-channel stereo, which would have been fine if the dialogue was appropriately centered. Instead, everything comes out of the front left-right channels, making the characters' voices seem disembodied! As such, it might be best if you listened to it through your TV set rather than your Dolby/DTS processor. And in another unfortunate lapse of judgement, Wolfe hasn't time-encoded the main feature (it runs 91m 40s), thereby disabling some of the trick functions that distinguishes the DVD format. There are no captions. Wolfe's track record on DVD to date has been generally superb, and while the technical blips on "Defying Gravity" may have spoiled the presentation, it remains a strong entry in their ongoing catalogue.

The disc also includes a trailer for this film and several other Wolfe titles. All in all, an OK package, but could've been better.

The DVD itself is great and has a very clear picture and, while I'm no audio expert, I thought the soundtrack and voices were above average. The soundtrack is actually included right on the DVD and has a "slideshow" that goes along with it showing scenes where the song was featured. I haven't seen another DVD that did this, and it's really cool and just one more reason to add it to your collection. The only draw back that I have noticed is that there is no Closed Captioning at all.

Although the dialog isn't always believable in some of the more dramatic scenes and some of the acting comes across as too forced, I think you'd be disappointed to miss this movie. The story is a good one and shows friendships in situations that aren't always seen in gay films. There are no sex scenes or nudity, and no violence is shown on screen. If it weren't for some graphic language and epithets, it could easily pass as PG-13 and would be suitable for nearly any audience.