Shelter

Director: Jonah Markowitz

Actors: Brad Rowe, Tina Holmes, Mat Bushell, Trevor Wright, Ross Thomas


On the recommendation of a friend who had caught it at Outfest, we saw the film Shelter this evening. What a beautiful film! To call it a coming-out story or a "gay surfer film", while true, would vastly oversimplify this film, which deals as much with the conflict of a young man trading dreams of art school against the obligations of supporting his struggling family. The protagonist, Zach, loves to surf, and surfing plays a big role in the film, but as one blogger said, to say that Shelter is about surfing is like saying that Brokeback Mountain was about animal husbandry. Like Brokeback Mountain, this coming out story is also set in a very atypical and unexpected context for a gay story (in this case, the California surfing subculture) and with characters whose situations make being gay especially difficult. Zach is the only son in a working-class family, with a disabled father, a deceased mother, an irresponsible sister, and her five-year-old son, for whom Zach is his only father figure. When Zach discovers an unexpected romance with the older brother of his best friend and surfer buddy, it threatens to be a life-shattering conflict. What is wonderful about this particular story is that it is not just a unidimensional conflict about acceptance or rejection of being gay. It is also about Zach pursuing his dreams of going to art school, and fulfilling his sense of obligation to his family to support his young nephew (both emotionally and financially). It is not a simplistic narrative of being true to himself by embracing his "gay self". For Zach, being true to himself includes his family values and his artistic aspirations, as well as his newly discovered romance, and so embracing his "true self" doesn't pull him in just one clear direction. Seeing how he resolves this makes a very satisfying story.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0942384/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelter_(2007_film)