Oof. It’s been a rough week, review-wise. With the exception of the delightful gem The Artist, I haven’t exactly been winning the review lottery. So let’s just say that, even without knowing anything about it, going into The Green, my expectations weren’t high. At the very least, I was resigned to do another caustic review. Surprisingly, though, The Green is a great little film—it may not be excellent, and there may not be much beyond the story, but it’s a good story, it’s relevant, and it’s told convincingly and well. Honestly, it’s all I could have hoped for (although my God the movie poster is awful. Dear lord).

The film takes place in Connecticut, where Michael (Jason Butler Harner) and Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson), boyfriends of 15+ years, just recently moved. Michael is a teacher at a local prep school, where his pet project and now-struggling protege Jason (Chris Bert) has just lost his scholarship, which seems strange to Michael—Jason’s such a smart kid, and now things are just all going awry. When, after Jason is tormented by bullies, Michael intervenes and tries to console Jason, though, Jason pushes him away, yelling at him to “get his faggot hands off him.” This naturally explodes, and Michael and Daniel’s life together is tested and nearly destroyed as the town suspects Michael of being inappropriate with Jason.

It’s a strong story, and one that is particularly topical in today’s climate. The key, though, is that each of the characters is not a caricature—the gay guys don’t wear brightly colored scarves, sway their hips, and say “Heeeeyyyyyy” in sing-song tones as greeting—they’re just real people. While, for the majority of the intelligent world, this isn’t incredibly shocking, it definitely is a departure from Hollywood’s regular treatment of gays, where all the guys are girls and all the girls want to break things. I must admit, it’s a breath of fresh air. It’s well-acted, too. Every character is highly believable, and Harner and Jackson carry the vast majority of the conflict effortlessly.

That being said, there are certain occasional problems here and there with the movie. I feel as though Jason, the character around who the plot is essentially based, has very little screen-time, and while I understand the movie more concerns Harner‘s Michael, I also feel that they could have fleshed out Jason’s character more and made him more relatable—as the story goes on and he becomes more embroiled in the conflict, I didn’t understand his motivations for what he was doing. Another thing is that Michael overreacts to the accusations against his reputation, which of course exacerbates the problem. I get that this heightens the conflict, but he’s a smart guy, and I’m not sure he would have been so repeatedly rash. These are tiny, mostly secondary complaints, though, and in a world of cheesy one-liners and stilted dialogue, Paul Marcarelli‘s

script is really very well put together. There is no excess dialogue. It is a very clean script.

There are also some really cool technical elements that director Steven Williford threw in, as well, which made certain scenes pop. His use of shadow during a storm about halfway through is stunning, and the occasional addition of some handheld camerawork increases the tension without drawing the audience’s attention to the filmmaking—I barely noticed myself. The score is a little new-wave-y for my taste, but it is very evocative, so I suppose it did its job, regardless of whether I felt it fit the movie.

The movie is short, clocking in at only 90 minutes, but I feel as though that’s to its advantage—while there could have been some more establishment at the beginning of the film, it might have detracted from the feeling of confusion and subterfuge that is at the core of the work. Also, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, simply telling a story with no extra tassels added on to the end, because it doesn’t need them. That being said, there are some really great little elements added in—scenes that establish character, the occasional joke or witty remark, the little things that have nothing to do with the conflict and thus are so very hard to include and have it work, and yet…they work.

I think the most important part of the film is that there’s truth to it. When I was a freshman in high school, a teacher was accused of exposing himself to a student. It wasn’t true, everybody was sure of it, but his entire life crumpled. The school couldn’t let him teach anymore. He had to move, seek work elsewhere. It was, to put it plainly, very sad.

At its heart, The Green is just a very true story, and it excels because of it.

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