THE AISLE SEAT - "IN & OUT"

by Mike McGranaghan

In March of 1994, Tom Hanks won an Oscar for playing a homosexual lawyer stricken with AIDS in Philadelphia. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his high school drama teacher and mentioned that the man was gay. Many wondered how that teacher felt about being outed in front of a billion people. Either way, the event became the (loose) basis for In & Out, a broad-as-the-side-of-a-barn comedy that plays like a Mad magazine parody of every homosexual misconception and stereotype imaginable.

Kevin Kline plays Howard Brackett, a popular English teacher in Greenleaf, Indiana. Greenleaf is the kind of quaint community where everyone knows everyone else and there are very few secrets. One of Brackett's former students is Oscar-nominee Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), an air-headed, self-possessed overnight sensation. Drake has been nominated for To Protect and Serve, a "serious" drama about a gay soldier fighting the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy (the fake film clips shown are worthy of the Naked Gun movies).

Drake wins the Oscar and dedicates it to his former teacher, who made a difference in his life. "And he's gay," the actor concludes, as jaws drop all across Greenleaf. Suddenly everyone thinks Brackett is gay. After all, they reason, he's neat, wears a bow tie, and rides a bicycle. He likes poetry, adores Barbra Streisand. He has been dating fellow teacher Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack) for three years, yet they've never even been intimate. Howard is scheduled to marry her in a few days, but no one believes it will actually happen. Meanwhile, a tabloid TV reporter (Tom Selleck) is trying to milk a week's worth of headlines from the public outing.

In & Out is not a subtle movie. Given the premise, there were essentially two ways to go. One would be to make a sophisticated comedy about the gay paranoia that clearly exists in this country. The other would be to play it all as a farce, skewering every stereotype about homophobia that you could conceive. In & Out goes for the latter, and to my surprise, it works very well. The screenplay by openly gay writer Paul Rudnick (who writes under the pseudonym Libby Gelman-Waxner in Premiere magazine) turns his acerbic wit on homophobia, but on gay culture as well (there are a lot of gags about Streisand and about gay "markers").

Aside from the screenplay, the key to In & Out's success is the casting. You need an actor who has the comic chops to make the material work, but also someone who can capture the prissy, flamboyant nature of the character without drifting into cruelty. Kevin Kline is perfect for the role (the only other person I could possibly imagine in this part would be Steve Martin). Kline spits out Rudnick's one-liners with impeccable timing, and he handles the physical comedy just as well. The film's best scene - in which Selleck surprises Kline with an unexpected act - is sure to be one of the year's most talked-about moments, not just because of the content, but because of Kline's physical reaction to it.

There are many big laughs in In & Out. Of course, Kline gets a lot of them, but so does the always wonderful Joan Cusack. Her character does not handle Cameron Drake's announcement well, which gives the actress the chance to comically freak out. It's a terrific performance that may well win her a real Oscar nomination. Bob Newhart is also hilarious as the school principal who becomes visibly uncomfortable at the mere mention of the word "gay." I also laughed at some of the Hollywood in-jokes that pepper the script. One dig at Steven Seagal is as funny as it is nasty.

In & Out was directed by former Muppeteer Frank Oz, who keeps the pace light and gets a good supporting performance from Tom Selleck (who really has a gift for comic timing). As I said, the movie plays like something from the pages of Mad magazine, including the ending, which beautifully sends up message movies everywhere. Oz gives the movie a good-natured spirit, even when the humor is at its most wicked.

When all is said and done, In & Out doesn't aspire to do anything other than make fun of prejudices. Sometimes humor is an effective way to point out the absurdities of our misconceptions. Taken at that level, the movie works. It's light as a feather, and I probably won't remember much about it a year from now, but In & Out did make me laugh while I watched it. And any movie that mocks Barbra Streisand's ego and Steven Seagal's poor acting is a-okay with me.

( out of four)