Review: Breakfast with Scot

The needlessly convoluted and contrived premise is enough to give one a headache.

Breakfast with Scot
Photo: Regent Releasing

The needlessly convoluted and contrived premise is enough to give one a headache: A Canuck gay sports lawyer, Sam (Ben Shenkman), brings the flamer son of his brother’s dead girlfriend into the home he shares with his boyfriend, Eric (Tom Cavanagh), a former professional hockey player. Essentially a wee Harvey Fierstein, Scot (Noah Bernett) loves musicals and wears a poodle belt, and as such the stage is neatly set for a commentary on queer self-loathing. We’ve seen endless variations of this formula before, but Breakfast with Scot offers less insight into the strain a child’s sexuality has on a parent than I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. The film means well, but it’s hardly cutting, made notable only by Bernett’s performance: Small fry is essentially conceived as a monkey by the filmmakers, but he brings a natural charisma to the role of Scot, and the effects his queerness has on both his school chums and members of the hockey league Eric forces him to join is genuine enough. Casting Cavanagh and Shenkman in a film together, let alone as gay lovers, practically counts as a human-rights violation, but more offensive than the neurotic tics these two predictably bring to the table is the sexlessness of their parts. Eric and Sam are practically eunuchs, and a better story might have connected Eric’s desire to butchify Scot with his own feelings about his sexual identity, but the film doesn’t really go there, just settling on Eric’s predictable rejection and ultimate acceptance of Scot’s particular gayness.

Score: 
 Cast: Tom Cavanagh, Ben Shenkman, Noah Bernett, Graham Greene, Fiona Reid, Jeananne Goossen, Colin Cunningham  Director: Laurie Lynd  Screenwriter: Sean Reycraft  Distributor: Regent Releasing  Running Time: 95 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2007  Buy: Video, Book

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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