Shut Up and Kiss Me (U.S. 2010)

The Gist:

Ben wants a relationship. Which leads him through questionable dating services, and questionable help from his friends, until he meets Grey, who may just be Mr. Right. Except that they have a major problem. Protagonist Ben wants a monogamous relationship and and potential boyfriend Grey does not. 

Comments (with a major spoiler because there's no real way to talk about the movie's primary problem without mentioning how it ends. Then again it's a romance dramedy so is the ending really that surprising?):

First off, the movie is not very good. There's lots of low budget problems, from a couple of rooms in a house obviously staged as every setting from gym to restaurant to office, to poor dialogue, to characters disappearing with no explanation, to acting levels that are all over the place from mostly good to outright terrible. All things that can be more or less ignored. What can't be ignored is the ending and how the story runs out of steam and collapses in in itself. 

Monogamy vs nonmonogamy should be an interesting topic for a movie. Creating your own rules by rejecting heteronormative demands for monogamy, or choosing the fulfillment found in remaining faithful to one person. This is more than enough to fuel a story. 

Except that none of this is dealt with in any depth beyond having Grey repeatedly say that nonmonogamy is important to him while never explaining why, and protagonist Ben repeatedly saying that monogamy is important to him while also never explaining why.

The movie goes along as expected, where they break up, but then abruptly ends with them back together again with no real change in the status quo and no explanation of why Ben suddenly decided he was okay with Grey having sex with other men other than just saying that he did. The lack of explanation makes it seem as if the movie is an argument for settling for less than what you want in a relationship. I'm pretty sure that's not what the creators intended, but unfortunately it feels like the skill level was not high enough to do more than that. 

The other movie I've seen writer/actor Ronnie Kerr in, Saltwater, is more or less the same basic story with the same problem. Two men, apparently perfect for each other, have one irresolvable issue that they can't work out that prevents them from being boyfriends. Except that they do suddenly get together at the end of the movie with seconds to spare, not by showing them dealing with the problem, but rather only with a quick line of dialogue just saying that they did. 

I like Ronnie Kerr as an actor, and he does "regular gay guy" well enough, but so far the movies I've seen him in are kind of bad. 

Women: 

Friends 

People of color: 

One sassy employee 

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes

• Director: Devin Hamilton
• Writer: Ronnie Kerr
• Actors: Ronnie Kerr, Scott Gabelein
• 787 min
• IMDB