A Pleasant Fantasy

The title gives it away: Big Eden presents a fantasy paradise of gay acceptance, a la-la land without bigots or bashings. And why not? Movies have provided other kinds of fantasies for years. The film's Big Eden, Montana, is not only a twin city to Northern Exposure's Cicely, Alaska, but close in spirit to Mayberry, R.F.D. -- if Barney Fife and Floyd the Barber were openly and proudly sharing a room.

Neurotic Manhattan artist Henry Hart (Arye Gross) leaves the SoHo scene for Big Eden, his hometown; his grandfather (George Coe) is ailing, but we also get the idea that Henry needs to get away for a while. With Big Eden a haven of cool lakes and huggy neighbors, it's a wonder Henry ever left in the first place. One of the reasons was evidently his unrequited crush on a high-school chum (Tim DeKay), now divorced and a parent. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha's main storytelling stumble comes with this character; months pass as Henry's unresolved feelings simmer, but apparently the subject never comes up off-camera.

The film's other main plot thread is delightful: the effect of Henry's arrival on the stoical owner of Big Eden's general store. This is Pike Dexter (Eric Schweig), a Native American somehow moved (though he would never say so out loud) by Henry's presence. Pike's solution to the dietary needs of Henry's grandpa -- Henry can't cook -- is to surreptitiously transform himself into a gourmet chef, providing healthy and delicious meals without anybody finding out about the source.

Surrounding this comic-romantic intrigue are various small-town types, good for punch lines and twinkling, all of them cheerfully accepting of the gay fellas in their midst. Little of this is plausible, but it is beguiling. Big Eden is a town where the codgers sitting around the cracker barrel at Pike's store offer up the tenderest advice in matters of homosexual amour.

Bezucha is a former director of creative services, whatever that could possibly mean, for companies such as Ralph Lauren and Coach. Yet the visual element of Big Eden is the least interesting part of the film (and the movie's a good twenty minutes too long, by the by), but the dialogue crackles happily and the performances charm. Arye Gross and Eric Schweig do the kind of controlled work that many first-time directors don't have the eye for. As for the film's vision of a gay-friendly utopia, Bezucha has said that his idea for the film was not to write "what you know" but "what you want." That's good enough.