Fire Island (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Yas, queens! This is the queer romantic comedy we've all needed and deserved for so long now. Joyous and funny and inspiring and heartfelt, Fire Island is pretty much everything we don't expect based on our cultural understanding of the titular vacation destination. It's the story of a group of gay men who go to Fire Island for their annual week-long vacation and how they catch up with each other and hook up with the other gays in the village. In doing so, and in such a positive light, this film seems to be working toward reclaiming the liberated sense of community in gay culture that has largely been absent since before the AIDS crisis. If it weren't for the cell phones and Gen Z slang, this movie could just as easily be set in the '60s or '70s.

Without rehashing the plot, suffice it to say that this is very much an adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The gay friends are the Bennett sisters in spades, led by a career best (so far) Bowen Yang as the Jane "sister" and Joel Kim Booster as the Elizabeth stand-in. Booster, fittingly, narrates the story with semi-frequent voiceovers; it's telling that Booster also penned the screenplay. Noah (Booster) opens the film quoting the first sentence of Austen's book before dismissing it as heteronormative and classist and announcing he's late for his trip to gay mecca. He notes that it's his personal goal to get Howie (Yang) laid this week, and he'll sacrifice his own fun until that goal is achieved. That's saying a lot, because Booster is ripped here, usually shirtless, and clearly sex-positive for himself, even if he can't or won't maintain a serious romantic relationship.

The typical "mean girls" of gays assemble, but they're so lovely as friends it's hard to get annoyed by their antics. Luke (Matt Rogers) and Keegan (Tomas Matos) are the Kitty and Lydia of the "framily," although it's Max (Torian Miller), the not-in-shape but sassy and intellectual theorist who is basically Mary Bennett and steals every scene he graces with his presence. And then, of course, enters their host who lives in the village, the lesbian Erin, played by a hilarious and somewhat underused Margaret Cho, who essentially fulfills the role of the Bennett parents. The racially progressive representation here -- and some body positivity, despite the obvious fantasy setting with shredded men and their six-packs -- is an astonishing feat that deserves a special place in queer cinematic history. At one point a character criticizes the "no fatties, no femmes, no Asians" slogan often seen or weaponized in exclusively gay spaces, a comment made off the cuff but that struck me as worthy of some intense examination. Thankfully, the film does examine this cultural mantra in an organic, sensitive way throughout the film rather than in any single didactic exercise.

Much as we might expect in a work inspired by Austen, the screenplay allows its characters lots of time to talk and philosophize and empathize between jokes and jabs. They engage with, bravely, issues of racial tokenism and fetishism, sex and body positivity, misogyny and internalized homophobia among gay men, and even classism and the formation of normative queer culture. The last points are especially effective, as I'm not sure I've ever seen them dramatized so fully in any film before (except maybe Hellbent, a personal Halloween favorite). After all, the friends talk openly about saving all their pennies for this trip every year, and that it's only possible because Erin only bought her house after winning a lawsuit. Then, after the "sisters" start to engage with a wealthy group of friends in the village (think of the Bingleys), the classism really amps up, encompassing everything from a snobbish doorman who pretends not to recognize them each time they arrive to concerns about education and self-determination in business.

This all leads to the romance, of course. Or rather, romances. Howie fairly quickly engages with Charlie (a handsome and sweet James Scully), a somewhat silly but bright-eyed and eager doctor. They are clearly in love, but temptations abound on Fire Island. Once he's occupied, though, Noah is free to spar with Charlie's...friend? Bodyguard? Miserable wingman? Will (Conrad Ricamora of How to Get Away with Murder) is a stoic, robotic lawyer, aloof and apparently mostly annoyed by the drama around him. Obviously the Mr. Darcy of this film, it helps that Ricamora is probably also the most recognizable cast member to the casual viewer, other than Cho. Those familiar with the source material will know that Noah takes umbrage to Will's attitude and behavior, and so the two vacillate from intense disdain and even antagonism to what are now considered typical tropes of sickly sweet romance. There's even a confrontation between them in a rainstorm in which major revelations twist the plot toward its climax.

What else? Sure, there are many more familiar plot points from Austen reimagined here, like Erin's financial woes that will force her to sell the house and end this festive tradition, or the return of Charlie's ex-boyfriend and his racist balderdash. But the film, despite its tender-heartedness and authentic sense of freedom and joy, proves itself capable of speaking to the times as well, in content and in delivery. Booster's screenplay and Andrew Ahn's direction deftly navigates dangerous tonal shifts from romance to comedy and from raunchy naughtiness to sentiment. It's a film about memory and memorializing a place with as many good reputations as bad; it's about chosen family and the ties that bind; it's about pride and prejudice, yes, and more importantly about the love found between them.