But I Am A Cheerleader

This "indie film" an independent film, meaning not from the regular Hollywood system, is a comedy about a teenager named Megan. Initially, she seems like a typical high-school student. She has a boyfriend. She's on the school cheerleading squad. But her parents come to suspect that she's a lesbian, and so they ship her off to a camp run by an organization called True Directions. The intent of the True Directions camp is to "rehabilitate" young gay people into being straight.

Life at the camp is not fun and games. It's run like a 12-Step Program, where the residents earn privileges based on how many steps they've made it through. Megan’s reaction is to deny that she's a lesbian. After all, she has a boyfriend; even though she fantasizes about the other cheerleaders when she's kissing him. But now, in the camps rehab program, she is forced to admit that she really is gay... and she realizes that there's nothing wrong with that, and what the camp is trying to do is wrong.

As I said, this is a comedy, and it has an element of portraying groups such as True Directions and their intentions. Megan befriends a fellow female inmate who goes by the name of Graham; Graham teaches Megan how to work the system, so that she can show and tell the camp counsellors what they want to hear while remaining true to herself. Megan and Graham ultimately begin a secret relationship. At a secret midnight outing to a local gay bar, they meet residents of a "free house" for refugees from True Directions, who work to undermine that organization's work while providing a safe house for those who manage to escape from the camp. Megan and Graham are offered home there, but the two decide to return to the camp and work from inside the camp.

This movie is a lot of fun. On the surface, just looking at the plot, "Lesbian teenager is taken to a camp where gays are reprogrammed", it may seem a bit homophobic, but the film is quite the opposite. And there are some great bits. The manager of the camp, a brutal woman named Mary Brown, she seems completely oblivious to the fact that her grown son, who works as a handyman at the camp, is probably gay himself. And one line had me just about falling off the couch, I was laughing so hard: in a class where the boys are learning basic car-repair skills, the instructor has a line, "Add a little more oil and shove it in and out". The instructor, incidentally, is played by RuPaul, attempting to play it straight, even thought he secretly want him.

Overall, this is a great little film. It may lack some things, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in a comic satire. A good script and some great performances make this one a winner.