Miss Cleo’s Picks: Were the World Mine

I’d like the think I’m at least a little adventurous in my life, if only intellectually.  As a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian, I tend to argue points I don’t even agree with, if for no other reason than to either bolster my own beliefs or to purposely challenge them, round them out so as not to fall victim to dogmatic stagnancy and rigidity.

Hence, to me, my willingness to go along with Miss Cleo’s recommendations from The Beyond (not to be confused with The Beyond).  Guided by spirits that I know just wanna stir up some shit with we foolish mortals, treating us like so many pressed cylinders of rubber (vinyl?) on the ice, she points her enigmatic finger and I follow, looking to see another little piece of the world revealed to me.  This has led me to some strange and interesting places, places I either had no idea existed or simply passed by, ignorant of what they might herald.  Every time Miss Cleo has raised her visage from her crystal ball or her tarot deck or even, that one time, her glossy Ouija, something at minumum intriguing has come through, something that makes me think or feel or look at things differently than my usual manner.

So expectations were understandably mixed when she tells me that this particular vision came through somewhat hazily.  She told me she wasn’t sure whether or not this particular spirit was speaking to me.  That’s a bit of a first.  Hmm.  Then I find out this particular pick is her own favorite LGBT (my apologies if I missed some letters in that initialism, I just can’t keep track)-themed movie.  (For the record, mine would have to be Chasing Amy.)  If nothing else, the lack of clarity and the personal preference illustrated above piqued my interest.  Three hundred words in, let’s actually get to this damn movie, eh?

Were the World Mine tells the tale of Timothy, a young gay man currently attending a prep school not unlike the one found in so many Dead Poets Society followers.  There, he is ostracized for his sexuality, though still holds a crush on the school’s star rugby player (who is currently dating a girl I believe to be a cheerleader, though I could be wrong on that count).  At home, his single mother is struggling with not only her new job as a Mary Kay-style cosmetics dealer but also her son’s sexuality.  His school stages its annual senior play, choosing Billy Shakes-His-Spear’s A Midsummer Nights Dream.  While running lines, his script magically reveals to him a love potion, much like the one referenced in the play.  Naturally, he concocts this potion and lets it loose on the unsuspecting populace of both his school and his town.  Plenty of same-sex coupling and musical numbers ensue, along with some consequent complications.

Much to my bemusement, that’s about as deep as the rabbit hole goes.  The characters, Timothy included, are barely fleshed out (though they admittedly somehow tend to resist blatant cutoutism), the musical numbers are a bit too few and far between if this thing styles itself as an actual musical (though they are performed fairly well), and the fairly tale-like story rings slightly hollow for me.

What did work for me, though, was what I took to be the underlying message: the power and authority of love as a force in life.  Beyond the MacGuffin-like aspects, this is where the connection with the play shines through.  The play ensconces love as the proper motivating force for pairing-off, rather than tradition, convention, expectation, what-have-you.  Moreover, it is love borne out of free will that is paramount, illustrated by the problems promulgated by the love potion.

In the movie, Timothy thinks the love potion is the answer to his prayers, his way into making his crush return his feelings.  Not only does this seem to happen, but it also affects his friend (much to the consternation of his girlfriend), his mother, the rugby coach, and most of his classmates, causing a more than a few triangles with some sharp edges.  What I assume to be the weight and gravity of the new situation hits him (this is what I mean with the hollow story: it isn’t clear whether Timothy actually feels the weight and decides to fix things or if his magical theatre teacher basically leads him to that action), and he sets things right with an antidote.  The trouble may just have outweighed the benefits.  Underlining this decision is the fact that his crush turns out to reciprocate after all, without the potion, and that, in my eyes, anyway, makes it all the purer, all the more satisfying.

It’s this emotional core that salvages things for me, but only just.  I am a man who likes his films with sharp wordplay and hard-hitting stories, neither of which are to be found here.  Still, emotion- and sensation-based films certainly have their merits and their place.  This one firmly sits in that latter category, a painting from the tail end of the Romantic period, just before the Impressionists really took off:  The visuals may be pretty, perhaps a bit empty, and the brushwork may tend toward the broad, but the evocation of feelings and ideas remains strong.

And so I keep returning to the Well of Miss Cleo, with varying degrees of hesitance, deeply curious as to what new place her prognostications will guide me next.  Will they make me feel?  Make me think?  Make me laugh?  Make me question my sanity?  Shit, I don’t know, nor do I think she necessarily does, either.  Regardless, it’ll be a trip and likely one more than worth taking.