This adaptation of Stephen McCauley’s novel (by playwright Wendy Wasserstein) has impeccable theatrical credentials, as it is directed by Nicholas Hytner, but also has crossover appeal because of the crucial casting of TV star Jennifer Aniston and visiting Friends regular Paul Rudd. This romcom with a difference – because the titular object is a gay man – touches so many contemporary hot button topics: alternative families, LGBTQ lifestyles, single motherhood, class, social status – and does so with a light-ish style, in quite a long comic/dramatic narrative that allows for decent character exposition and actual conversations. Aniston is the social worker stepsister of Allison Janney, who’s married to a hot literary agent, Alan Alda. Their daughter attends a private school where the terrific young first grade teacher Paul Rudd runs a great musical production every year. He winds up at one of their dinner parties where fellow invitee Aniston unwittingly reveals to him that his gay lover Tim Daly wants him out of their apartment. So she rents him a room at her place … and falls for him while she’s pregnant with her laywer boyfriend’s baby. She thinks she and Rudd can raise her baby together. Trouble is, his ex wants him back, then he falls for a gay mentor’s own roommate, and the baby is on the way, while the lawyer (John Pankow) himself finds love elsewhere after being shut out for so long. A lot like life, with a good feeling for how people really are and the playing is superb with Nigel Hawthorne a particular joy as a wise old queen who gently asks Aniston at Thanksgiving Dinner what will happen when all her male homosexual friends disappear. For fag hags everywhere!
