C.O.G. (2013)

Film: C.O.G. (2013)
Stars: Jonathan Groff, Denis O'Hare, Corey Stoll, Casey Wilson, Dean Stockwell, Dale Dickey
Director: Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Oscar History: No Nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

David Sedaris' intimate stories lend themselves well to audio books and public readings, but not necessarily to the cinema, so I wasn't surprised to hear that this was the first adaptation of one of his stories for the big screen.  His inner narrative is so important to shaping a book, that from the moment this movie started and there was a lack of Groff's inner thoughts as a framing device, I knew that we'd be in trouble.

(Spoilers ahead) The film has so many elements that I enjoyed, though, I felt that I could occasionally find my way through the film without too much difficulty.  The film focuses on Samuel (Groff) a man who has abandoned his Yale education and his posh home life to "rough it" in Oregon, trying to live a Grapes of Wrath lifestyle, and will soon be joined by a female friend who thought of the idea.  As goes the best laid plans of mice and men, Samuel is abandoned by his female friend and decides to stick it out in hopes of finding some sense of self.  After spending a few weeks picking apples, he moves on to a job in a factory, where he befriends a handsome man named Curly (Stoll) and eventually becomes involved with a religious zealot named Jon (O'Hare) whom he meets in an earlier scene in the movie, where he receives a pamphlet with the initials C.O.G.

The meaning of these initials is supposed to remain a mystery throughout the entire film, but for anyone with half a packet of sense (or who saw the trailer to this film), they clearly stand for "child of God" and the fact that Samuel cannot instantly realize this makes me question what the qualifications are to get into Yale.

This obtuseness about the motives of the characters rings throughout the entire film.  The performers (particularly Stoll and a surprisingly dramatic Wilson) all rise above the film with little exception, but the narrative devices never quite work on-screen.  In particular, the fact that they're trying to make a "film about a gay man that isn't about him being gay" is particularly exhausting because the film is about him finding himself.  This is something that I hear from a lot of actors and gay actors; "the character's gay, but that's not all he's about" is a standard line in interviews, and they're right (and shouldn't this be obvious to anyone with two brain cells?).  Indeed, there are moments of my life, days even, where I don't think about being gay at all-nothing that comes up that day is any different than if I had been straight.  However, and this is a big however, when you're discussing coming-of-age and finding your place in the world in your twenties, ignoring the character's sexuality is a fatal flaw.  You can try to be edgy by having a gay character that's focusing on something else, but that's not going to work if you're frequently skirting around the issue.  Groff's Samuel is frequently alone onscreen, and has clearly dealt with homosexuality in some fashion (he's not on speaking terms with his parents for a clear reason), so why ignore it entirely.

The other really bad (in my opinion, film-killing) error in the movie is the casting of Corey Stoll.  This seems odd to me, because Stoll is one of my favorite emerging actors at the moment.  He's the best thing about Midnight in Paris, the best thing about House of Cards, and actually the best thing about C.O.G.  He finds layers in Curly that we didn't expect, and has a great lived-in quality about the man that has had to hide on the skirts of his sexuality for many years.  However, the fatal flaw is that Stoll is far, far too good-looking to make this part seem believable.  David Sedaris quipped upon hearing that Stoll had been cast that if the real Curly had looked like Stoll, he would still be in Oregon, and the movie never gives us enough reason in the early scenes to understand Samuel's rejection of this kind (he isn't later, but he is up-until-this-point) and attractive man.  In fact, the film shows Samuel masturbating in a scene immediately after meeting Curly, but then rejects any concept of them having sex together.  By completely ignoring the fact that Samuel is coming-to-terms with his sexuality (which, again, doesn't jive with the fact that he came out to his parents-no one comes out to their parents until they are certain), the film leaves this pivotal scene, which shapes the rest of the narrative, without any rhyme or reason.

The movie occasionally finds something meaningful to say about the way that religion is used as a tool for different purposes and that we can all be hypocrites with the right opportunity, but it never fully recovers from this encounter.  What could have been a truly interesting film about the complications of sexuality or religion gets thrown asunder when the director/writer won't admit a simple fact: his main character is a gay man.