You I love

In 2003, Russian gay cinema came out. Sort of. You I Love, co-written and -directed by a pair of female TV talents, told the prettily presented tale of a young advertising industry man who falls in love, with a female news reader first and then with a young male zoo worker in Moscow.

The movie has great curiosity value, mainly for enabling foreigners to see the Russian capital city and sense how its Westernised post-Communist society has developed. It also shows admirable technical expertise in colour cinematography, sharp editing, and set lighting. However, although the trio of lead actors is pleasant to look at, their dialogue is littered with stumbling blocks.

Hardest to get over are the central figure's accidental meetings with his two lovers. Then we are expected to believe that the woman has an insatiable appetite for food and the man won't be bothered by her face-stuffing eagerness. Beyond that, with no explanation whether the younger man is really gay, or just likes singing with his fingers, we have to believe that they fall in love at first touch.

The audience next has to accept that the woman will accept a form of threesome, or two couplings, or whatever. One cannot be sure because the men never take off their black underwear. They do go to a gay house party (last seen in such silly singing and dancing mode in mid-20th-century UK gay films that thought they were dolce-vital) and make a lot of noise behind a closed door outside which two gay Russian senators linger avidly.

Meanwhile, the plot thickens and giggles when the young man's uncle arrives from the far-off snowy boondocks and rescues the lad from Muscovite depravity. The actor playing the lad is short, perhaps a circus acrobat in real life, and his features are non-Russian, almost Asiatic, unlike those of his movie parents, who send him off for military service. In the last scene, "two years later", he's with the couple, sharing their baby-caring duties.

Oaks do grow from acorns, and a good gay movie may arrive from Russia one day, but it won't credit this corn for its inspiration.