Hard Pill

Finally. A well-acted, well-written, engaging, suspenseful, honest, intelligent and altogether fantastic film.

For the gay men and women reading: If you could take a pill that made you straight, would you?

Could you turn back years of family friction, workplace tension and social pressure? Would you opt to live a more ‘normal’ life?

That is the issue at hand in Hard Pill. Tim is a ‘not gay enough’ gay guy living with the daily rejection of not being handsome enough or masculine enough or muscular enough to get the right guy. He doesn’t feel accepted by the ‘gay community’ and would just simply rather be straight. This wish comes to fruition with the announcement of a university study for a pill that proposes to turn homosexual men into happy heterosexuals. You might expect lots of big crowd fireworks and media circus, but the filmmakers dump that and opt for a tight claustrophobic chamber piece as Tim’s decision ricochets through the lives of his friends with cringe-worthy results. You know when you watch a movie and you shudder because you know that nothing is going to be simple and you feel for the characters and the pain they are about to experience? This is like that. Points are made about the ethics and morals of the pill but always in direct context to the story – never settling for easy answers and always showing the moral muddling of love, sex and identity.

Watching the special features, you learn that the film was made via a specific story outline, with lots of improvisation of parts of the actual film as well as character development – that’s why it is so well-acted.

Fantastic movie.