Fridae

Honest, tender and touching, The Man of My Life is perhaps the most accurate drama about gay men to screen in Singapore since Brokeback Mountain. Although the film veers towards the arty side, that should not deter you gay audiences since you've always had better taste in films that straight people anyway. (Now, now, don't be modest...)

Bernard Campan plays a happily married straight man who invites his new neighbour (Charles Berling) to dinner with his wife, kids and friends. It turns out that Charles is a flaming homosexual with challenging theories about love, commitment, art, architecture, fashion �X oh well, everything else that gay men understand and straight men don't.

After one night of DMCs (that's 'deep, meaning conversation') together, Bernard finds himself increasingly attracted to Charles. It didn't seem possible, but Charles seems to have awoken things that have lain dormant inside Bernard, from a latent homosexuality to a certain selfishness that gay men display. Bernard's marriage starts to fall apart...

The best thing about The Man of My Life is its frank portrayal of a gay man. Charles is depicted with all the flamboyance, pretentiousness, promiscuity and vanity that are typical of poofs �X right down to his high slit jogging shorts that reveal the underside of his butt. Director Zabou Breitman (a happily married woman with kids) seems to understand what makes a gay man and a straight man tick, and deftly play off their differences.

Watch this, if only to see fragments of yourself in the mirror.