VOD Review - From Zero To I Love You

Scott Bailey is an actor who looks like President John F. Kennedy aka Jack Kennedy. He played Jack Kennedy in a 2016 episode of NBC's Timeless. That same year, he played Bobby Kennedy, Jack's younger brother in three episodes of Aquarius. Bailey might actually look even better, but he's certainly got that Kennedy vibe. Here, he stars as Jack Dickinson and another character comments on how he looks like Kennedy. Jack Dickinson though isn't a politician, but, much like the 35th President of the United States, he is having his secret affairs. He isn't sneaking off with women like Marilyn Monroe. He's instead sneaking off with men, various men that he meets at gay bars. Like JFK, he's married with children, several daughters in fact. Yet, it doesn't stop him from hooking up with guys behind his family and friends' backs.

Writer-director Doug Spearman starts off with Jack in therapy talking about his issues. The scenes though with Jack's therapist feel only perfunctory or as a way of getting through certain portions of exposition. Those scenes and his therapist don't feel designed for actual analysis and introspection. Therefore, there is no analysis and introspection provided as to why Jack is the way that he is. It's later casually mentioned that he was engaging in homosexual activity when he was a teenager and before he married, but the question is never asked of him as to why he married a woman and had children at all. The reason stems from some kind of homophobia, which is never explored or examined. It wouldn't need to be verbalized, if Spearman had given us more or anything of Jack's family. Yet, most of Jack's past is left a blank.

Darryl Stephens (Noah's Arc and Boy Culture) also stars as Peter Logsdon, a magazine writer who lives in Philadelphia. One night he meets Jack at a bar. Jack lives in the suburbs but takes the train into the city to hang out. Peter takes an interest and takes Jack back to his home in the city. Peter learns that Jack is married, but that doesn't deter him from hooking up with Jack. When he talks to his parents, they ask him why he constantly hooks up with married men. Later, Peter is asked why as a black man he constantly dates white men. Peter isn't in therapy, but there are explorations of these questions for him. We learn for example that Peter's mother is deceased and his black father, Ron, played by veteran actor Richard Lawson, has been dating a white woman named Pamela, played by Leslie Zemeckis.

Because we get scenes with Peter and his family, scenes that either directly address or demonstrate why Peter does the things he does, he becomes a more considered character. The scenes with Peter and other people go to helping us understand Peter as a person. The scenes with Jack though do nothing to help us understand him. Scenes with Jack only underscore or reinforce the idea from the top that he's secretly gay and can't admit it to his wife or children. Other than that, he's not dealing with anything new or anything that different from the characters in Brokeback Mountain (2005). Yet, you'd want characters 15 years removed from that film dealing with things that feel present and now.

Spearman was apart of the great TV series Noah's Arc (2005) and he's going to be apart of the TV series based on the film Boy Culture (2007). Both those properties came in the wake of Brokeback Mountain, but both were well beyond the coming-out and closeted, married-man narrative that immediately felt retrograde even during Brokeback Mountain and its mainstream success. Spearman's film here feels retrograde as a result. It feels retrograde, particularly in the wake of his previous feature as director, that of Hot Guys With Guns (2014). That film wasn't about coming-out or being closeted. It moved beyond that now cliché plot and story.

He does make great use of the City of Philadelphia. He places his characters in classic landmarks like City Hall or Love Park. He also frames them beautifully against those landmarks. However, Spearman utilizes the often not seen sections of the city like Washington Square West, aka the Gayborhood, the area of Philly where the most LGBTQ activity occurs and the most visible LGBTQ presence is like Quince Street and its cobbled-stones, which seem featured here. Yet, the film does swerve toward a romantic ending that isn't technically set in the City of Brotherly Love but does make great use of that phrase.

Not Rated but contains language and sexual situtions.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 46 mins.

Available on Dekkoo.