‘1985’: Important, But Too Familiar

Yen Tan’s “1985” is arguably an important movie. On paper, it checks all the boxes: A closeted young protagonist struggling to fit into his conservative family? Check. A dramatic backdrop of a global epidemic? Check. A black and white film, shot from unconventional angles? Check. Nevertheless, watching the film at the 2018 Wicked Queer Festival yielded a feeling of disturbing familiarity—less in the sense of emotional attachment to the characters and more in the sense of a recognition of well-known stereotypes.

Indeed, the movie’s synopsis presents nothing new. “1985” tells the story of Adrian (Cory Michael Smith, most well-known for his role in “Gotham”), who left his small hometown in Texas for New York City. When the film begins, he goes back to the South to visit his family for Christmas. Back home, Adrian reunites with his caring mother, clashes with his emotionally unavailable, religiously pious, and beer-drinking Texan father, and serves as a role model for his little brother, who is questioning his sexuality. Above all, he has to face the double challenge of coming out to his family and telling them that he has AIDS.

Sound familiar? Tan’s film parallels the narratives of many other movies, namely Xavier Dolan’s “It’s Only the End of the World,” which tells the story of a terminally ill playwright who returns home to tell his family that he is dying. But while Dolan’s film explores new thematic and visual forms of storytelling—from claustrophobic close-ups to poetic slow-motion shots—“1985” stays in the realm of the well-known narrative and lacks the same depth and originality. Even the plot’s twists and turns are, for the most part, either predictable or just not compelling enough. (One of the main revelations in the film is that Adrian’s mother secretly voted for Democrat Walter Mondale and not for Republican Ronald Reagan in 1984.)

Tan’s reductive, explicit screenplay doesn’t leave much room for subtext and creates a somewhat superficial understanding of the characters and their motives. At first glance, Andrew, Adrian’s brother, seems to be a potentially well-rounded character. But by the time the movie ends, he remains an amalgamation of tropes and familiar characterizations of a closeted teenager; he loves Madonna and does theater at school, two facts from which the viewer is almost forced to deduce his unsurprising homosexuality. Even the grainy, black and white cinematography—a fascinating artistic choice in and of itself—doesn’t compensate for the simplicity of the script. Potentially powerful moments, like the one when Adrian, agitated, goes into the field with his dog, are beautifully shot. But in the context of a predictable, simplistic plot, they often feel like a soap opera. The characters leave an impression of one-dimensionality—Adrian’s most compelling attribute is his gayness; his mother is just soft, loving, and supportive; his father is merely “conservative.”

LGBTQ visibility on screen has come a long way. In recent decades, openly queer filmmakers and characters have found their way to movie theaters, laptop screens, and red carpet events. Of course, not every queer film has to revolutionize the film industry: Films can be extremely insightful and effective by using stereotypes. The problem with “1985” is that it doesn’t feel like its creators are using tropes consciously.

Instead of perpetuating stereotypes of closeted young people and their unidimensional religious families, we need to find new ways to explore the challenges faced by queer communities and individuals, like intersectionality and various forms of persecution of LGBTQ people. In times when a presidential administration publicly recognizes the right to discriminate LGBTQ Americans and tries to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military, movies like “1985” are crucial. They are a step in the right direction, but one step is not enough.