I Am Michael (2016)

Director Justin Kelly's film, I Am Michael is a bit of a struggle to watch. He takes on the story of controversial figure Michael Glatze, former gay activist who no longer identifies as gay and instead works to "convert" gays to Christianity. Made by predominantly gay film makers and cast, the film clearly goes out of it's way to try to appear unbiased while in the end showing this as tragedy, showing Michael as a victim of hateful rhetoric. But it's not entirely successful at either.

Kelly does his darnedest to not proselytize. He tries to let Michael's story play out the morality play itself. Michael ends the film having failed to convert the only gay christian we see him attempt to fail. The film shows his heterosexual relationship to be loveless and barren. And it ends with him facing his parishioners in his homophobic church of his own creation with a look of terror on his face. But the film never gets us to understand why. 

I think most of this stems from a fear the film has of truly approaching the difficulties around gay conversion therapy, about the ex-gay movement. It felt like the film wanted to give Michael as much benefit of the doubt as possible but in doing so mutes the very things which make his journey a failure. Franco and his cast do as good a job as any with what they work with but the film remains to sterile for Michael's conversion to have any palpable meaning. 

And it's difficult to watch a man destroy himself without having anything cathartic for the audience to work through. Unfortunately I didn't' feel much watching I Am Michael and a film like this needs to truly get us feeling.  It is a beautifully shot film and shows some potential for film maker Kelly but it's not there yet.

I Am Michael
Starring: James Franco, Zachary Quinto, Emma Roberts, Daryl Hannah
Director: Justin Kelly
Writers: Justin Kelly, Stacey Miller