IN & OUT: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Paramount, 1997) Kino Lorber

The insidious blood sport of being publicly ‘outed’ for one’s sexual preference gets lampooned in director, Frank Oz’s In & Out (1997), an escapist, yet diffident entertainment that makes short shrift, and, light of a very dark and ugly chapter in American pop culture. A pause here, I think, and very important to note the vantage; the early 1980’s, with its incorrect diagnosis of AIDS as a ‘gay’ disease, the infected ostracized from ‘polite society’, thereafter to be endlessly humiliated – leaving a career, lifestyle, and one’s reputation in utter tatters. The message here was pointedly clear. Better to stay ‘in the closet’ than stand one’s ground in choosing who to love without restraints. In & Out, does, in fact, contain a rather obtuse, though even more obscene moment where the aged conservative parents of newly outed middle-aged school teacher, Howard Brackett (played with prissy-resistant aplomb by Kevin Kline) promise to love their son no matter what; then, rather crassly, equate his homosexuality with being a deranged homicidal maniac, attempting to take out half the town with a rifle. Why any of this should be considered even remotely amusing has more to do with casting; venerable Hollywood stalwarts, Wilford Brimley and Debbie Reynolds descending into doe-eyed, geriatric camp.

In the 1950’s, if you wanted to destroy someone’s livelihood, you labeled them a communist or communist sympathizer. In the 1980’s, the carpet-hauling was abject ridicule or acquiescence to cruel ‘fag’ jokes. Yet, none of this menace is actually acknowledged in In & Out, a feather-weight ‘charmer’ that has its proverbial ‘stick’ already out to poke at the closeted Howard, played with impish confusion by the classically-trained Kline, as well as make a mockery of the bucolic sect in this Norman Rockwell-esque enclave of Greenleaf, Indiana. It seems none of the townsfolk can fathom homosexuality, much less identify the real homosexual living in their midst. But once acknowledged, their confusion turns to even more rancid naïveté for placating misperceptions of what it means to be gay in America. Gay men dance to songs like Donna Summers ‘Bad Girl’ and Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. They watch Barbra Streisand movies, particularly Funny Girl and Yentl. It takes screenwriter, Paul Rudnick exactly 36 seconds to establish these moronic principles once Howard’s sexual preference is lain bare at the annual Oscar telecast by Best Actor winner, Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), who also happens to be a former student of Howard’s.

The cream of the jest is uncomfortably anchored in the ambivalence and thorough disbelief immediately to follow Drake’s acknowledgement of Howard’s gayness. In this aftermath, Brackett’s bewildered parents, and also, his fiancée, Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack) have lots of questions; none, purposefully formulated to get beyond the stereotype stuck in their heads. Howard who, rather bizarrely, has never considered himself a homosexual, is as taken aback. Or is he?  In 1997, director, Frank Oz could still get away with flimflamming a heterosexual audience about the origin story of most homosexuals who know, practically from birth, which sex they favor for companionship. However grotesquely flawed and silly In & Out gets, it never quite transgresses into crudeness. The gay jokes indiscriminately lobbed here are non-offensive, bordering on ‘cute’.  If they intermittently reduce Howard’s quest to ‘know himself’ into a blind fool’s errand, they also provide lots of incredulous romantic comedy. Asked by Howard as to whether or not the presumption of his homosexuality shines through, Bob Newhart’s dead-pan high school principal, Tom Halliwell coolly requests, “Would you walk for me?” 

At the time of its release, In & Out was rather sincerely embraced, even praised by critics for its frank depiction of being gay in middle-class/Bible-belt America. Personally, I could not disagree more. Even in 1997, the picture tingled with tinny hypocrisy of the ‘it’s okay to make fun of gay people’ ilk, starting with Klein’s closeted Brackett, disingenuous with his soon-to-be, bride, Emily who has lost 75 lbs. just for the occasion, and, his own parents, who desperately ‘need’ their only son to marry – preferably, a girl… “It’s like heroin!” mom, Bernice tells him. That Howard doesn’t ‘know’ he is gay is a big hurdle to overcome. But Howard seems genuinely startled to have been ‘outed’ on TV, begging the additional inquiry as to how his one-time pupil-come-movie star knew it first, as Rudnick’s screenplay is careful to illustrate there was no teacher/student ‘impropriety’ of a sexual nature between Howard and Cameron Drake. So, if Howard never told Cameron he was gay, and never even made a pass at him, then Cameron’s speculations are not only slanderous, but rift for a libel suit.

Grafted onto this already thoroughly rickety premise are the overtly countrified folk of Greenleaf, represented as good-hearted, but otherwise dimwitted dullards and ding-a-lings. Determined to tread lightly on their skewed and incredibly limited knowledge of gay culture, high school jock, Mike (Zak Orth) attempts to ‘educate’ his fellow footballers on ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ – orifices on the human body that are not supposed to be used for alternative purposes. Meanwhile, Howard’s pals (Ernie Sabella, Dan Hedaya) host a ‘stag party’, substituting porn with laserdiscs of Streisand’s Funny Girl (1968) and Yentl (1983). Ancient Aunt Susan (Alice Drummond) openly admits she never care for The Bridges of Madison County (1995) while fellow ‘educator’, Carl Mickely (Kevin Chamberlain), vulgarly informed by fellow teacher, Mrs. Lester (Debra Monk) that Howard “likes dick”, obtusely inquires, “Dick who?”

Tom Selleck is in this one too, as a dashing reporter for an Entertainment Tonight-styled program, who coaxes Howard from his social angst by confessing his own homosexuality to him. Given the low-balling of all this hyperbole and speculation about what actually makes a gay man gay, I rather expected screenwriter, Paul Rudnick to go for the absolute jugular in clichés and invent a scene where someone spins some Judy Garland records at Howard and Emily’s engagement party. Reportedly, Rudnick pilfered his inspiration from Tom Hanks’ Oscar-acceptance speech for 1993’s Philadelphia, as Hanks inadvertently outed one of his former teachers on live television. In the movie, this moment is inaccurately recreated, with Matt Dillon – as local man-crush makes good, wins Oscar gold for playing a gay man in a war movie, embracing the moment with – “Mr. Brackett…we won!” Within minutes of Cameron’s worldwide announcement, Greenleaf is thrown into a tizzy, beating a path to Howard’s front door to gawk at their homegrown ‘sideshow freak’.

The simpering whiz-bang of toadying humor that follows forces Howard to prove himself a straight man (something he’s not), Howard employs the nineties derivative of ‘aversion therapy’ - motivational tapes, designed to make a ‘real’ man out of him as a disembodied ‘butch’ male voice (John Cunningham), spouts idiotic signifiers like, ‘Yo!’ and ‘Hot damn!’ while inferring such extremes as John Wayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the ‘norm’ all straight men aspire to emulate – “Arnold doesn't dance. He can barely walk.” And then, there are Howard’s parents to consider, Berniece (Reynolds) and Frank (Brimley) who promise to love their son, “gay, straight, red, green” even if he robs a bank, murders someone or gets wasted and climbs “the clock tower to take out the town.”  What a lovely sentiment - if only it did not equate Howard’s sexual preference with indecency, then, criminal activities and finally, acts of extreme violence against humanity.

Hitchcock would likely have paused here to interject “It’s only a movie” and, of course, I must concur. It only is. But a good one, In & Out is not, leaving the homosexual act of love-making to be deciphered by a pack of curious, cringe-worthy high school boys who deem sexual penetration between men as permissible only in prison “where it’s a substitute” or “in space”, where, arguably, it cannot be helped, as astronauts just happen to “…float into each other!” Not all of the humor in In & Out is as bumbling and bad, derived from white-bred country bumpkins who believe even the word ‘gay’ should only be uttered in hushed supplication. I am reminded of the moment immediately following Cameron’s outing, when a startled and sweaty Howard suggests to his family, “I may sue” to which his dad, Frank immediately replies, “Get Johnnie Cochran - not that woman.” Now, that’s funny! But the bulk of the gawk and goo here is squarely situated on how many gay guffaws Rudnick can squeeze into a slender 90-minutes, right down to having Howard flame-out while spinning the Village People’s Macho Man – that late-70’s anthem to male ruggedness.

To recap: Howard Brackett is a high school teacher living in the Bible-belt. His former pupil, Cameron Drake has just been Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of a gay soldier. Naturally, the whole town is agog and buzzing with excitement. Cameron just might win. And in fact, he does. Unfortunately for Howard and his fiancée, Emily Montgomery, elation turns to bewilderment when Cameron publicly thanks Howard for his tutelage; then, informs the audience and the world, Howard is gay. Outside of fifteen minutes, Howard’s mother, Bernice and father, Frank are knocking on his door, demanding to know the truth about their son’s sexual orientation. Worse, Howard’s principal, Tom Halliwell begins to have second thoughts about Howard staying on as an educator. Presumably, his ‘gayness’ will rub off on the students and faculty. Naturally, Howard denies Cameron’s allegations, pawning the onus onto Hollywood’s crazy lifestyle having turned his former student’s head. Besides, Howard’s wedding to Emily is slated for the following week. He can’t be gay…can he?

If his friends and family are willing to accept Howard at face value, the paparazzi beyond the borders of Greenleaf are not. In no time, a ‘media frenzy’ ensues in the heart of rural America. Hot shot television tabloid journalist, Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck) arrives for the real scoop and is treated to a litany of rumors and innuendo from Howard’s closest associates. As luck would have it, all of this intense scrutiny eventually leads to a breaking point. Howard is forced to admit to Emily he is, in fact, gay. Predictably again, this is done at the most inopportune moment – their wedding. However, this being a ‘comedy’ – life, and the town go on, the reception transformed into a ‘coming out’ party, with the whole town admitting their own ‘not so shocking’ foibles.

In & Out just feels more like a sophomoric comedy from the late seventies than a witty and urbane rom/com from 1997. By then, even ‘outing' someone was hardly a ‘new’ experience. So, whatever socio-political wallop the movie might have possessed a decade earlier, to make it edgy and fun, has since missed its mark by nearly 20 years of National Enquirer headlines. To be sure, there are a few fun moments scattered throughout this picture. But the story here is so one-dimensional, and ‘on the nose’, what follows is contrivance laden upon the waning stigma for a lifestyle readily embraced elsewhere in the civilized world. Greenleaf's conservative folk are broad-brushed as local yokels whose rudimentary comprehension of homosexuality is supposed to make them fun-lovingly misguided. Is it any wonder Howard Brackett couldn’t come to terms with being gay before he turned forty?

Kevin Klein does his level best as the amiable fop, liberated from small-town prudery by his failed contrition to be ‘just like everybody else’. Alas, Kline’s self-delusion at the outset is unconvincing as the presumed ‘straight man’ and thereafter, steadily devolves into more than a cheap lampoon of the ‘flaming queen’ once he is able to get in touch with his authentic self. So, Cameron’s allegations are wholly believable from the outset. And, rather heavy-handedly, Klein’s Howard punctuates his moment of nationally televised ‘outing’ by allowing his wrist to go limp. Joan Cusack provides some stylized comedic touches. But on the whole, Cusack and the rest of the cast here are distilled to ‘summer stock’ theatricality. Their main purpose is to contemplate the Howard Brackett they only thought they knew, and reconsider whether the Howard Brackett they know now is worth the knowing on those terms. Howard’s burgeoning gayness and the town’s bewildering acceptance of it in the end is beautifully photographed by Rob Hahn, with art direction by Ken Adams. If only In & Out did not treat homosexuality as a figment of one’s own derailed desire to be overcome, and homosexuals as good-natured idiots who don’t know their own mind, the picture might have inched toward quaintness. Some comedies become timeless with age. Others date with the passage of time. Viewed today, In & Out is shockingly behind the times, even for 1997.

And Kino Lorber’s new-to-4K hasn’t exactly improved the picture’s prospects either.  Previously, Paramount Home Video released an absolute travesty of mastering in standard hi-def. Now, the studio is trying to re-market their lemons via third-party distribution, with an advertised ‘new 4K scan from native 35mm elements. If this is the case, then In & Out still falls spectacularly short of expectations. Colors here are generally anemic. Flesh tones are either pasty pink, jaundice yellow or ruddy orange. Worse, fine detail is wholly wanting.  Ron Hahn’s cinematography was never meant to be razor-sharp crisp. Indeed, he appears to be using some sort of mild diffusion filter to evoke this bucolic backwater, caught in the perpetual afterglow of late summer sunlight filtering through the trees. Yet, what’s here just looks like an old video master.  There is no afterglow. Just a soft and slightly out of focus image that only occasionally satisfies.

Contrast meanders and fine details are sacrificed in the dimly lit scenes, especially night scenes which tend to run a murky mess. The DTS 5.1 audio doesn’t go far beyond the DVD’s original Dolby Digital presentation. This is a dialogue-driven movie, so there is nowhere to truly exhibit DTS’s capabilities. But even Marc Shaiman’s underscore sounds slightly muffled here. Kino has shelled out for some extras. On the standard Blu only, we get an audio commentary from Rudnick moderated by author/historian, Lee Gambin. There are also new interviews with Frank Oz and Marc Shaiman, as well as an assemblage of cast and crew sound bites recorded at the time the movie was being shot, interpolated with behind-the-scenes footage. Finally, we get the same careworn theatrical trailer, looking decade’s older than it ought. Bottom line: there are better comedies about being gay, and far better rom/coms in general than In & Out. And a lot better examples of a vintage entertainment making its way to 4K. Pass, and be glad that you did!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

4