By Robert St. Martin
Screening at Frameline LGBTQ+ Film Festival in San Francisco on June 27 is a bubbly and steamy comedy Throuple”-– about a married gay couple who alternately fall in love with a third gay man and he, in turn, seems to fall in love with the other two. More than a glance at a “menage a trois,” Greyson Horst’s debut film is a captivating tale of the pursuit of modern love amidst the vibrant energy of the Brooklyn DIY music scene and its bold artists. Throuple captures how their young gay and lesbian artists make their love lives work for them. The Brooklyn music scene depicted in the film has echoes of Rent and Shortbus, and the energy of French New Wave cinema.
Throuple casts the film’s screenwriter-lead actor-musician Michael Doshier as “Michael,” who audaciously portrays an unvarnished lead character: He is messy, impulsive, fearful of intimacy, and yet utterly heartfelt and charming. Michael has been living together as roommates with his best female friend Tristan (played by Tristan Carter-Jones) in the same apartment for years. Tristan is a singer and often performs in local musical venues and we meet her at the beginning of the film on stage as Michael cheers her on. She has a girlfriend Abby (Jess Gabor) with whom she is getting quite serious.
At its opening, single, yearning singer-songwriter gay 30-something Michael is adrift and musically uninspired, hurtling through the Brooklyn bohemia aimlessly. His regular day job is as a business administrative assistant, but he actually dreams of making music all day instead. He’s a solitary soul who may not still be a virgin, but he’s been single, and rather aimless, for some time now. After a performance by Tristan at a local club, lightning strikes in the form of a gay married couple: Georgie (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge) and Connor (Tommy Heleringer. who was in Gayby). There is an immediate physical attraction between the three of them, but also a very definite mutual hesitancy about how they should proceed.
Seemingly on the hunt for casual sexual encounters, Georgie and Connor instantly draw Michael into their orbit. But when Michael’s relationship with the husbands starts to feel less like a fling and more like a hunt to find their third, Michael starts to consider new possibilities both in his romantic, platonic, and artistic pursuits. Michael’s epiphany takes him to uncharted territory as his newfound openness renders him an unexpected romantic anarchist of sorts.
Things get more complicated as Michael is forced to deal with the fact that Tristan is serious about being with her girlfriend Abby and not willing to accommodate Michael’s whims. After Tristan and Abby announce their engagement, Michael feels very much alone but he needs to learn to deal with that and channel his energy into his music.
Throuple embraces openness and creativity as keys to unlocking oneself. Using split-screen editing, sharp location photography, and colorful captions amid the din of the many concert and performance sequences, the film’s energy stems as much from its central trios (both romantic and friendship based) as the creative community they’re a part of.
Clearly, the performance by actor Michael Doshier as the charming and vulnerable Michael in Throuple is what carries the film and one cannot help but love his energy. Doshier frames his personal inspiration for writing and starring in the film in startling terms: “Throuple finds me mining a part of my humanity and committing to a hyper-personal approach I’ve long delayed. Both its romantic and friendship throuples are based upon my real relationships. And I found the motor of the ‘Michael’ character, our protagonist, by zeroing in on my worst qualities, and blowing them up to seismic proportions. The result? I’ve found that I’ve written my most personal story yet –which somehow contains my most universal message: you have the right to outwardly claim the desires of your heart.”
Throuple is on screen with Frameline at the Roxy Theatre in San Francisco on June 27, at 3:30 pm. For tickets, go to: https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline48/throuple. The film will also screen online through Frameline Digital Screening Room beginning June 24.
