‘Blue Film’: An acclaimed LGBTQ indie that’s not for everyone

The most acclaimed LGBTQ movies of the 2020s — All of Us Strangers, I Saw the TV Glow, Fire Island, Leviticus, even Tár — have little in common with Blue Film. Yet writer/director Elliott Tuttle’s Blue Film holds a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, even with two very flawed characters and a subject matter most audiences would run from.

Unlike most of the aforementioned films, Blue Film contains no romance or sweetness. While Blue Film‘s characters are as complicated as Lydia Tár, they are not exceptional performers like she is, nor do they have any of the trappings of success, like money, partners, or kids. Blue Film is about one person who has done unspeakable things and another who humiliates lonely people for cash. Not only are the characters difficult to identify with, but their disclosures and interactions throughout the movie make it intentionally uncomfortable for the audience.

While Blue Film was adored by critics, it hasn’t yet found a wide audience. Now that it’s been released on streaming, it may find more people willing to confront its difficult story.

I recently connected with Tuttle and the movie’s stars, Reed Birney and Kieron Moore, about Blue Film. One thing I wanted to know was what Birney and Moore thought of Tuttle’s script. Both actors said they were fascinated by the characters, thought of them as challenges, but weren’t sure anyone would actually see such a movie.

“What are the odds of a low-budget movie about a pedophile having an audience?,” Birney, a Tony winner who also executive produced Blue Film, said. “For it to come out and be greeted so rapturously and so seriously, I’m still in complete disbelief… even when people don’t like it, I understand why they don’t like it.”

What’s Blue Film about?

The movie’s protagonist, Aaron Eagle (Moore), is an LA-based queer camboy who performs for a gay male audience. He’s hostile to his online audience, peppering them with slurs, which seems to be what they want. A pathological liar, Aaron refuses to be honest about his life before he became a cam boy. He’s also insecure, posturing an extreme version of masculinity by taking up as much space as possible and using his formidable size to intimidate. He’s pretty hard to like, at least in his current incarnation.

Aaron may have been more endearing before heartbreak — and life in LA — hardened him. The movie’s plot kicks into gear when Aaron heads to the home of a fan who’s offered $50,000 for a night with him. Answering the door in a ski mask is Hank (Birney), and just like that Blue Film shifts into horror-thriller territory. The shocks will soon arrive, but there are no weapons, per se.

See, Hank is no stranger. He was one of his teachers back in Maine. Recently released from prison for trying to sexually assault one of his students, Hank is now in Los Angeles specifically to see Aaron, whom he believes he was in love with. That’s news to Aaron.

What follows is an all-night conversation between the two men as Hank works to break down Aaron’s defenses and extract some truths from him. Hank is hiding a lot, too, but he seems more adept at opening up and offering up some version of his past, even if it’s filled with delusional thinking and bullshit justifications. Hank is a pedophile, and he seems too oddly comfortable with that fact. Some viewers will recoil at that, others will stay to see what happens.

Blue Film is a dark movie, with a hopeful ending.

Hank is a deeply damaged man who has hurt children, but is superficially a much nicer person than Aaron — while Aaron broods and deflects, Hanks smiles and inquires. Thanks to Aaron’s youth and the fact that he’s never done anything remotely as evil as Hank, the younger man seems salvageable in comparison. Because the movie is bookended with Aaron, Tuttle seems to indicate his Blue Film is not about redeeming Hank or making the audience sympathize with a pedophile. Yet Hank is an unexpected force for good to grown Aaron.

At one point, Hank talks about the two men as children and asks Aaron if he ever feels pity for his younger self. It’s a question at the heart of the film — do we ever offer compassion to our earlier versions, our innocent childhood selves eventually beaten into cynicism by life? Can we ever drop our adult armor and get back some of that joy and wonder? Hank reminds Aaron of the earlier self he’s discarded; a likable kid who loved to sing. At the end of the encounter, Aaron is humming to himself in the shower and then napping peacefully, with the weight of his double identities seemingly sloughing off his shoulders. This suggests Aaron may have a chance at reclaiming some of his more innocent, joyful self.

Tuttle says he began journaling before the script came together. He was writing about his own adolescent sexuality and the story “became this whole other thing about loneliness and the way we explain ourselves to ourselves,” he told Mashable.

Blue Film offers no easy answers.

The conversation that constitutes the majority of Blue Film is occasionally interrupted by beer guzzling, weed smoking, and flashes of sex that end almost as fast as they begin; in that regard, there are some similarities between Blue Film and the 2011 gay classic Weekend, which explored how a short, chance encounter between two men can lead to a deep connection; maybe even a relationship. But, unlike Weekend, there is no climactic kiss in Blue Film, or even an indication its characters will ever see each other again.

Still, both movies speak to the queer experience of adopting personas to shed identities that no longer suit us. While Weekend used a sexy, confident twink as a foil for its repressed/depressed protagonist, Tuttle utilizes a pedophile to the same end. It’s a bold choice, and certainly not for everyone.

“It gave me a great reassurance of how intelligent audiences are,” Moore said of the response to his film debut. “People want to watch things and pick them apart and decide how it makes them feel rather than being told how to feel.”

Blue Film is available to stream on Apple TV and Prime Video.