By Valerie Milano
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/4/24 -Released theatrically in Los Angeles May 31st – June 12th & NYC June 6th – 13th, Big Boys (2023) is Corey Sherman’s debut feature film. A sweet and funny story about a 14-year-old ‘big boy’ whose awakening sexuality is authentically portrayed. As the title suggests, the movie is built around two characters who are ‘big boys’, with Corey Sherman turning the “fat funny friend” trope on its head in this simple but well-scripted tale. When writer and director Corey Sherman was putting together Big Boys, he said that he never saw it as a celebration of bigger queer bodies, but more as an examination of a teenage boy’s unexpected crush on an older man who happens to be larger sized. The main character, Jaime, (Isaac Krasner) is a 14 year old ‘big boy’ who is a bit of a geek and verges on being shy around others. Whilst other boys his age talk about sports and girls, he is just obsessed with developing his culinary skills. Jamie comes across as a truly likeable youngster who tries to understand his own burgeoning self-awareness in a way that reflects the experiences of many gay men when they were once that age.
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Jamie (Isaac Krasner) is getting ready to go on his annual camping trip with his older brother Will (Taj Cross) who he tolerates and their twenty-something cousin Allie (Dora Madison) who he is extremely fond of. However, Jamie’s mother reveals to him that Allie is now dating a new boyfriend Dan (David Johnson III) and that Dan is going on the trip as well. Jamie is not too happy about the idea of Dan accompanying them, but once they get to the campsite (which seems to be Lake Arrowhead), Jamie begins to warm up to Dan for reasons that even he does not understand. As he tries hard to win Dan’s friendship, Jamie’s awkwardness around Dan goes unnoticed by everyone, including Dan himself. He tries to impress Dan with his knowledge about cooking and even shares a drawing he sketches of Dan in a hammock. Meanwhile Jamie’s older brother Will teases him mercilessly, but Jamie takes it all in stride.
When Will suggests that they try to pick up some teenage girls around the campsite, Jamie goes along with Will’s antics, but it is both interesting and awkward how Jamie handles their night out on the prowl. Jamie is not sure about the delicacies of chatting up a girl, however he finds his own way of dealing with it in a quite humorous scene in the film. An awkward encounter between Jamie and another shy teenager, Erika (Marion van Cuyck) brings to light his inner yearning for Dan. But, back in his tent that night, his dreams wander between the possibility of intimacy with an attractive teenage girl and a 26-year-old charming ‘big boy’ “bear” who is Dan. This realization on the part of Jamie is sensitively handled as Jamie senses that Dan is the object of his affection.
Dan is good-looking and happens to be larger sized which is definitely something that set off Jaime’s attraction in the first place. Dan’s manly attention to Jamie’s older female cousin Allie places Jamie in a space of longing for attention from Dan. It’s when the two of them are thrown together while they are hiking on their own, that Jamie realizes that he needs to break out of his shell and somehow manage to open up to the object of his affection. Big Boys tells a story of unrequited queer desire which is one of the most realistic things about the film.
One of the joys of Big Boys lies in the contrast between the film’s easy-going, unforced rhythm and Jamie’s mounting desire for Dan, whose larger build and flashing eyes make him seem like his older double. Jaime is so awkward around Dan, with his highly expressive fidgeting betraying his attempts to hide his internal chaos. Dan as played by David Johnson looks and acts like a charming gay “bear”. Although, clearly heterosexual in the role, he is just sexually attractive enough to entice gay viewers.
In talking about his film, Corey Sherman points out that usually young gay teenagers are portrayed as thin, white, and conventionally attractive. Since he grew up as a ‘big boy’ himself, Sherman felt that he wanted to reflect his own experience on the screen. “I almost never saw anything that showed bigger people respect and treated their stories as if they were just as important as the thinner characters, and that their characters were as worthy of romance. If the character was big and likeable, then they were just the sidekick or they were just a complete joke.”
Early on, Jamie struggles to take his tee-shirt off to swim in the lake. By the end of the film, he has changed and actually goes into the lake with his brother topless. Nothing more is said of it. He has become comfortable in his own skin, and that is how Jamie fantasizes himself in a scene where he imagines hooking up with Dan later in life when he is in his 20s. “When he manifests himself in the future,” Sherman explains, “he’s not a thin supermodel. He’s still a big guy. That’s part of who he is, and he doesn’t find that’s something that he needs to get rid of to be attractive.”
There is no cliched “coming out” scene on the part of Jamie. It’s a quiet realization on the part of Jamie that it’s alright to be attracted to another man. He doesn’t feel pressured to act out standard positions about masculinity or sexuality. “Just because I was big then – and I still am – I’d have felt this feeling of being validated, and being shown that my body is attractive too.”
16-year-old lead actor, Isaac Krasner, provides a breakthrough performance reminiscent of Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore. His 14-year-old character, Jamie, also exudes the studied charm and comic fastidiousness of Rushmore’s hero Max Fischer. David Johnson as Dan is charming in his own way and kind-hearted in the latitude, he gives to this ‘big boy’ teenager who is trying to figure things out.
