Dream Boy

While skimming the Netflix new releases last week a movie title jumped out at me: Dream Boy. I wondered if it was based on the very first gay-themed novel I ever bought, and indeed it was. I remember my teenage self skulking around a Barnes & Noble with that book in my hands, working up the courage to bring it up to the cashier. Justdoit, justdoit, just do it, I probably thought back then, and I'm sure the cashier asked, "Just this today?" and I would've thought, "Just this? Just this?? Lady, this is everything."

It's an odd book to make into a movie in 2010, though, because it is an old-school gay story, from back when no happy endings were allowed. The high-school-age protagonist, Nathan, finds refuge from a lifetime of horrible parental abuse in Roy, the lovely neighbor boy who takes him under his wing and into his hunky arms. Nathan is played by Stephan Bender, known to me only (but well) as young Clark Kent in Superman Returns. Finally getting a smooch from Roy should elicit the same bliss that he showed in Superman when he discovered he could fly, but unfortunately Bender basically cowers through the entirety of Dream Boy. Nathan wears a constant slouch, as though he's perpetually fearing a smack in the head -- a posture that would be appropriate for Clark Kent, but around Roy, you want Nathan to become Superman, and he never does. That's not to say the acting is bad -- Bender seems fully committed, and the love scenes are particularly touching because Nathan is so desperate for tenderness. But still, he's too cute to never flash us a smile.

Or maybe it works. Being old-school gay, this story cannot allow Nathan to be happy with Roy, or even to survive. So yes, at the end of the book and the movie Nathan does indeed get beaten to death by a classmate with the broken arm of a chair. And maybe it's because Nathan was cowering through the whole movie, as though he knew this was coming, that this final outcome is affecting enough to keep me thinking about it days later. Nathan never had a chance. 

The novel was published in 1995 and takes place, I think, in the 1970s, but the movie is set in a timeless neverwhere. Roy drives a 1930s pick-up, but other cars are more modern. There are no computers or cellphones, but the clothes are reasonably current. Even Roy and Nathan seem from opposing eras -- Nathan is scarred and scared, while Roy is well adjusted. The jumbled setting could represent a time like today, where maybe there's marriage equality on the coasts and a young actor can play gay without committing career suicide, but for some kids living their own lives in Kentucky or Louisiana (where this book is set), that hardly matters. Still, when those boys and girls are pacing around a Barnes & Noble in 2010, the book they finally hand to the cashier is at least much more likely to have a happy ending.