Drool | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Laura Harring as Anora in Nancy Kissam's Drool. [Photo: Strand Releasing]

Drool *

by Adam Keleman on January 21, 2010 Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own

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Brightly colored and dreadfully overacted, Nancy Kissam's Drool is the worst kind of gay cinema. In a small town in Oklahoma, Tabby (Ashley Duggan Smith) daydreams about jock boys, illustrating her vivid thoughts down on paper, with satirical animation that reflects her ever-changing mood and darkly humorous personal point of view. At home, her soft-spoken, pent-up mother Anora (Laura Harring) must deal with her father Cheb's (Oded Fehr) crippling abuse. Soon Anora befriends the new neighbor, and cosmetics rep, Imogene (Jill Marie Jones); their newfound, scandalous relationship leads to the death of Cheb and a family on the run. Terribly miscast, the once-alluring Harring stretches herself a little too far in the repressed Southern housewife role; her blunderingly performed accent is a complete misfire. The rest of the cast doesn't fair too well either: Smith is exhausting and shrill, aiming for the more relatable angst of Ghost World's Enid but landing more in the category of the unbearable, pesky Dede Truitt from The Opposite of Sex. Without any clear focus, and devoid of a singular idea other than filling the screen with as many gay characters as possible, Drool is content in not challenging the film medium—and developing not one character that actually speaks, sounds, or moves like a human being. In the vein of But I'm a Cheerleader and Die, Mommie, Die!, Kissam tries her best to make the next gay camp classic, but the end result here inspires nothing more than an "I've seen it before" shrug.

Director(s): Nancy Kissam
Screenplay: Nancy Kissam
Cast: Laura Harring, Jill Marie Jones, Oded Fehr, Ashley Duggan Smith, Ruthie Austin, Christopher Newhouse, Dalton Alfortish, Rebecca Newman
Distributor: Strand Releasing
Runtime: 85 min.
Rating: NR
Year: 2009