Brian Sloan's 'I Think I Do' is a great date film

by Greg Varner

The movie bug bit him when he saw Star Wars at age 11, according to Brian Sloan. Ironically, he resisted his parents when they offered to take him to the Uptown Theater to see it, having been put off by the long ticket lines he'd seen on the local television news.

Luckily for Sloan and his widening circle of admirers, his parents prevailed. "I got very excited about movie-making from that film," Sloan says. "I became completely obsessed with how they made that movie, and then started making my own little movies."

Sloan and a neighborhood friend in suburban Kensington, Md., started filming their own episodes of their favorite television shows, such as Wild, Wild West and Star Trek, in the friend's attic.

"We would make up our own plots," Sloan recalls. "We literally would do that every day after school for two or three years. He would usually star. I was a reluctant actor. I was much more into being behind the camera." The friend's mother tried to chase them outdoors, Sloan remembers - "She would say, 'It's a beautiful day, you should be outside!' She probably had a point" - but to no avail.

Sloan's boyhood friend is now making television commercials in Boston. And Sloan himself is a graduate of New York University's film school, with two popular short films - "Pool Days" and "Shall We Dance" - already to his credit and his first feature film, I Think I Do, going into national release on Friday, April 10. Five months ago, Washington, D.C., audiences voted I Think I Do the best men's feature at Reel Affirmations, the annual Gay film festival. All three films are essentially coming out stories, told in a distinctly fresh comic voice. Sloan, however, says he now finds "Shall We Dance" too talky.

"I'm learning how not to let the dialogue overwhelm," he says, adding that this can be tricky because he likes writing dialogue. "I like stories that are character-driven," he explains, "and generally such stories aren't very action-oriented."

I Think I Do is a sweetly subversive romantic comedy. It tells the story of Bob and Brendan, students at George Washington University who are roommates in a group house. Bob comes out as Gay and admits that he has a crush on Brendan, but it's a painful case of unrequited love for a guy who appears to be straight. Flash forward five years, to when the gang has graduated and dispersed, but reassembles in Washington for the wedding of former housemates Matt and Carol. Bob is Carol's maid of honor; he brings his boyfriend, Sterling, who is a soap opera star. Brendan, meanwhile, has realized that he is Gay after all, and the fun begins.

The film's story is up-to-the-minute, but if its sweet spirit seems familiar, Sloan says, that's because he was inspired by the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and '40s. While working as a researcher on a series of PBS documentaries about the history of American film, he fell in love with romantic comedies such as Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night.

"The thing that surprised me was how funny they were," Sloan says. "I thought black and white films were boring and stodgy." The subversive undercurrent running through many of the films he was watching also impressed him.

"Many of them were about very independent women getting divorces and having children out of wedlock. It was social commentary with a very light touch. Back then, the taboo issue in our society was the role of women, and today the taboo issue is the role of Gays."

Sloan's political commentary in I Think I Do comes partly in its use of Washington as a setting. A discussion between Matt and Sterling during which both men - one Gay, one straight - plan their weddings was filmed at the Jefferson Memorial. It was Sloan's way of advocating for equality in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

As the tall, sandy-haired Sloan talks, it becomes increasingly apparent that he did not simply borrow his comic sensibility from classic Hollywood screwball comedies - rather, they mirror his own bemused, romantic take on life, and perhaps helped him to refine it. In any case, he praises the directors of those older films, such as George Cukor and Preston Sturges, for making literate movies with an emphasis on character.

"There's a lack of that now," he says, "especially in comedy. Comedies are so broad, and often lack ideas. All audiences get now is Jim Carrey making obscene noises."

Sloan says he thinks audiences are "much smarter" than they receive credit for being, and that he hopes to give them "entertainment they can enjoy, but entertainment with an edge."

In fact, he thinks of I Think I Do primarily as a "date movie," he says. "It's not about AIDS or politics. It's a date movie, like straight people have had for years, and I'm glad to fill that gap. I'm a big romantic at heart."

The music on the film's soundtrack was an inspired choice of Partridge Family classics such as "I Think I Love You." The music is "romantic, but kind of goofy," Sloan says, making it a perfect fit for his story. Well-matched as it is, his choice of music came as a felicitous accident. "My boyfriend at the time I was writing the script was playing a lot of Partridge Family songs," Sloan says.

The process of directing a film, Sloan finds, is very similar to the way he chose the music - marked by collaboration and lucky coincidence. It is, in fact, like being a host at a party. "You just put a bunch of interesting people in the room," he says.

Sloan is not a bossy host. "As director, it is your job to tell everyone what to do," he says, "but that aspect of it has never really appealed to me. It's really a collaborative effort between me and the actors and the crew."

Just as wise teachers are not afraid of silence, but wait for their students to talk, Sloan exercises similar patience on the movie set. "After the scene's over, I don't immediately jump in saying, 'Cut!'" he says. "It's wonderful to watch actors when they discover a little moment I hadn't thought about."

An example of such a moment in I Think I Do, Sloan says, comes when Sterling, played by actor Tuc Watkins, stands in front of a bathroom mirror and sucks in his gut. It would have been all too easy for Sloan to stop filming when the dialogue had ended, but his respect for actors and their craft paid off - Watkins was improvising, and everyone on the set started laughing. "When the crew laughs, you know it's funny," Sloan says.

His respect for actors meant that he and the film's casting director spent three months casting the roles, Sloan says. The most difficult part to fill turned out to be that of Brendan. The actor had to be attractive to men and women alike, and had to be able to meet the role's emotional demands - and, in addition, had to be comfortable playing a Gay role.

An actor they had initially been interested in, Christian Maelen, turned down the invitation to audition at first, Sloan remembers. Maelen's agent told them that the actor had read the script but was not drawn to the material. On the last day of casting, a bicycle messenger came into the production office to make a delivery. It was Maelen, who said he had never seen the script. He got the part - and shortly got a new agent, too. Shooting commenced soon after that lucky day, and was completed 25 days later. "We had a tight schedule," Sloan recalls, "and we couldn't stand for any divas."

The finished product is a date movie that should appeal to Gay and straight audiences alike, a heartfelt comic examination of love and its uncertainties. Convincing audiences on an emotional level is important to Sloan.

"It's a corny phrase, but emotion is the greatest special effect," he says. "I can't remember who said that, so if you want to give me credit, that's fine."

He is now at work on a high school comedy called Sluts! - "I spell it with an exclamation point so that people know I'm being ironic" - but when the time comes for future film scholars to watch Brian Sloan's movies, they will probably start with I Think I Do.

They won't, however, find those original TV episodes made in the neighbor's attic. None survived, because Sloan erased them all and reused the same tape over and over.

As for the mother who tried to shoo the boys outdoors, she has since recognized the error of her ways, Sloan says.

"She told me, 'I guess you stayed inside for a reason. You were really serious about this.' And one day she can say 'It all started in my attic.'"

Copyright 1998 The Washington Blade