(1992)

Submitted by Julio M

Overwhelmed with being dumped by Allison (Lori Loughlin) after she discovered the letter his former boyfriend Kyle (Bennett Cale) sent him, as well as with the expectations everyone -especially his parents- had of him vs. coming to terms with his homosexuality, Matt (William McNamara) crashes his car into a pole, in a suicide attempt. He is briefly hospitalized; Kyle comes to see him, but ends up leaving disappointed because Matt is scared. The mother, Lisa (Bibi Besch), shows signs of knowing what actually happened, but is in deep denial because of maintaining appearances. And Tim (Jim Carrey), Matt’s alcoholic sibling, suspects it was no “accident”, as everyone else seems to believe. Parallel to this, Matt’s sister, Karen (Jayne Brook) was arranging to have an abortion behind her husband Tom’s (David Byron) back, but he still finds out.

Matters come to head after Matt is released from the hospital and returns home. Lisa confronts him over a letter sent by Allison where she apologizes, demanding an explanation; it starts with Matt just saying there’d be no wedding and escalates into a bitter argument where Matt comes out as gay to everyone. The father, Phil (James B. Sikking), is dumbfounded; then, Tom tells Phil off about how he and Lisa went to great lengths to create a great façade of having a “perfect family” that, in reality was anything but, and how Tom would save his own family from it. Karen admits her fear of becoming her mother as a motive for having the abortion, but Tom forgives her and convinces her to keep the baby.

In the end, the family, which is revealed to be extremely dysfunctional, is shown as fragmented. Matt is seen trying to rekindle his relationship with Kyle, finally free from the burden of keeping up appearances. Lisa insists on a stubborn, unforgiving attitude towards her son “because of the embarrassment he has caused”, whereas Phil, while still trying to grasp it all, shows signs of wanting to fix whatever damage done and making amends with his children.