Brotherly Love

The gay comedy-drama Brotherly Love, adapted from John Gordon Sinclair’s 2012 novel Seventy Times Seven, arrives at an odd moment in the real world. In the debate over underlying reasons for rampant pedophilia in the Catholic clergy, some higher-ups in the church hierarchy put the blame squarely on "homosexual culture" in seminaries and monasteries. In Brotherly Love, a gay underground does indeed exist among young monks (they appear to be Franciscan) who haven’t taken final vows. Vito (writer-director-actor Anthony J. Caruso) parties, hangs out at a gay bar, and flirts with men he meets, sticking to the letter of the chastity rule. But when his adviser suggests that he needs a change of pace, Vito agrees to spend a summer helping out at an AIDS care center in Austin. There he meets Gabe (Derek Babb), a handsome, well-built landscaper with puppyish charm. Not only is it pretty clear what’s going to happen from this point on, but Caruso is a somewhat wooden director behind the camera, robbing the narrative of what should have been an emotional roller coaster. The best moment almost falls outside the plot: a conversation between Vito and an old Hollywood screenwriter who has AIDS—it is an unexpected scene that delivers a fleeting spark of life and surprise that the film otherwise lacks. Optional. (T. Keogh)