The Film Experience

Series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Doesn't it look like these two crazy, beautiful kids would make a cute couple? Think again.Another week, another 1998 comedy about the relationship between a woman and her gay best friend starring a cast member of Friends. You have to love a specific subgenre. While Lisa Kudrow and Martin Donovan traveled across the country to find Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex, Jennifer Aniston stayed in New York in a more familiar genre -- the romantic comedy.

As the title The Object of My Affection suggests, Aniston falls in love. Unfortunately for her, the titular role is her new gay best friend, a first grade teacher played by a baby-faced, charming Paul Rudd. Wendy Wasserstein’s adaptation of the Stephen McCauley book of the same name uses genre tropes to sand some of the thorny elements of the premise. Yet, this not-always-perfect movie gives a really interesting look at a codependent friends who love each other, but also hold each other back...

Our central friends meet at a dinner party thrown by Alan Alda and Allison Janney as a wealthy couple, as all straight women and gay men do. George (Rudd) is their daughter’s first grade teacher who was invited to celebrate the school play of The Little Mermaid, where their daughter was the star. Nina (Aniston) is Constance’s (Janney) social worker sister. Constance constantly wants to break up Nina from her bombastic boyfriend, Vince (John Pankow). She does so by throwing her gay houseguests Nina’s way. George’s boyfriend, Joley (Tim Daly), sits next to Nina at dinner and hears that she has an open room in her Brooklyn apartment and suggests that George moves in with her. That’s how George hears of his own breakup.

While living together, George and Nina develop an instant friendship over their shared bond of late night comfort eating. Soon, they are absconding from their normal lives and doing everything together. They hang out constantly, take mambo lessons, eat food in the same bed while watching TV, all normal friend things. However, Nina starts developing feelings for George, more feelings than she has for Vince. This shift is only further exacerbated when Nina becomes pregnant with Vince’s baby. With a big life shift ahead, Nina must decide who she wants to raise a baby with. The answer is George, not Vince. After initial hesitation, George becomes consumed with the idea of being a father. Nina breaks up with Vince and she and George set up new rules for their life together. They would be mother and father to her child, but platonic. However, they would not take up new relationships, instead staying committed to one another and their baby.

Allison Janney is serving New York socialite realness as Constance.

Constance: I enjoy gay people, but I just have a slight problem with my pregnant sister being in love with one of them.

God bless Allison Janney and her line readings. No one can do it better.

Obviously there are a zillion red flags with the set-up of the movie. Luckily, all involved see the red flags and they are frequently called out. Only George and Nina are delusional enough to think that this sort of relationship is bound to work. Knowing that George once slept with a woman in high school, she thinks that she can teach him to physically love her. This leads to an interesting seduction scene that almost works. Sexuality is a spectrum and it’s interesting to watch Nina try and navigate where George falls on the spectrum to get what she wants. A well-timed phone call keeps George from sealing the deal with Nina. He thinks he’s signing up for effective celibacy, while Nina thinks she can turn him. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston were the proto-Will & Grace before the show existed, with some additional somewhat misguided sexual chemistry.Last week when we looked at Bill (Martin Donovan) in The Opposite of Sex, many commenters noted that he was a lead, rather than a “gay best friend” accessory. The same could be said about Rudd’s George, as he drives the story forward and has his own storyline independent of Nina. However, it’s interesting to look at both of these movies back to back. Both released in 1998, it felt like the runaway successes of Philadelphia, The Birdcage and In & Out made Hollywood feel comfortable with gay characters leading films. Particularly for The Object of My Affection, it feels like the studio hedged their bet, making it just as much or moreso a Jennifer Aniston vehicle rather than a movie about a gay man. Neither were massive hits, but The Object of My Affection opened at #2 in April and made a respectable $29 million. Meanwhile, The Opposite of Sex was an indie success that stuck around and eventually grossed $5 million.

Even though The Object of My Affection may be more built around its gay lead, The Opposite of Sex does a much better job of giving its gay lead an arc and a perspective on queer life in the 90s. While Bill is genial to a fault, much like George, the movie is centered around his pursuit of love and pain of heartbreak. His big monologue also verbalizes a very real generational divide between gay men. AIDS is central to the plot of The Opposite of Sex, while never mentioned in The Object of My Affection. A scene where George goes out with a “ear, nose and throat doctor” is played for laughs as this doctor seems more promiscuous or into the gay scene than George. George’s squeamishness is not the butt of the joke, it’s the doctor. It’s not until he travels back to his college and hooks up with a young, aspiring actor named Paul (Amo Gulinello) that he seems to act on his sexual urges. Still, it’s hard to reconcile the movie’s prudishness towards gay life with its obvious affection for George. It definitely feels like George was presented as “not like one of THOSE gays” to appeal to mainstream audiences. While problematic now, these more “mainstream” depictions helped move the needle of gay acceptance in media.

Rodney Fraser: Have you noticed that you're the only practicing heterosexual at your Thanksgiving dinner?

Nina Borowski: I haven't practiced for a while.

-------------------------------------------------------

Rodney Fraser: Don't fix your life so that you're left alone right when you come to the middle of it.

After this hookup, George invites Paul to his Thanksgiving, along with Paul’s much older acting teacher/roommate, Rodney (Nighel Hawthorne), who clearly carries a torch for Paul. Nina is openly delighted to be hosting a gay Thanksgiving with theoretically no romantic options for herself. However, fellow third wheel Rodney is less delusional than Nina. He may be interested in Paul, but knows that it’s likely Paul and George are getting together to hook up. He tries to gently push Nina to realize her ulterior motives, but she remains obtuse. Aniston does a great job to use comedy as a wall that Nina puts up. Still, deep down she sees the writing on the wall. Rodney is the Ghost of Thanksgiving Future for her. If she continues to chasing after unavailable (aka gay) men, she’s making choices that could lead to late in life loneliness.

Nina: You don't tell a woman that you love her and then two days later bring Romeo home to sleep with you.

After Thanksgiving dinner, Rodney leaves to go home and Paul stays to go out with George. Who could’ve guessed that? Apparently, Nina couldn’t. She has a huge fight with Paul, essentially asserting that their arrangement was to be celibate forever. To her, if George has sex with someone else, it means that he doesn’t actually love her. In actuality, Nina is treating George as just another possession in her apartment, rather than a person. She’s giving him all of herself - her apartment, her baby, her devotion and love - and she expects the same of him. This all-or-nothing codependent relationship was never going to be sustainable. George shouldn’t have to be celibate to continue his friendship with Nina.

Who wouldn't love a big romantic gesture at a wedding? Your gay best friend who isn't into you. That's who!

Nina: I want you to be with me, I want you to marry me, I want you to love me the way that I love you.

It wouldn’t be a romantic comedy if there weren’t a wedding. In this case, the climax occurs when George and Nina attend the wedding of Frank (Steve Zahn), George’s womanizing brother. The two light it up on the dance floor, their mambo lessons coming in handy. It’s a sweet moment between George and Nina, especially after their contentious fight. However, no dance number can slide over their clear issues. In a grand, empty room, Nina pulls George aside and confesses her love for him, once and for all. Similarly, George lays it all out on the table for her, he’s never going to love her in the way she wants.

There’s not a sitcom trope this movie didn’t want to use. Thus, Nina goes into labor shortly after this wedding. George is there by her side, with Vince arriving shortly after. When the nurse comes for paperwork, George hands the baby over to Vince, telling the nurse that Vince is the Father. This is all Nina needs to hear. She asks George to leave the apartment before they get home from the hospital. He obliges.

Of course we have to give these two crazy kids a happy ending.

Like with any charming romantic comedy, we get a happy ending. It’s roughly eight years later. Nina’s daughter, Molly (Sarah Hyland), is in George’s school (he’s now the principal) and is the star of his show. We pan across one row in the auditorium and see all of the characters enjoying the performance, with Alan Alda obviously being the most jubilant. Even Rodney is in the audience, praising the production. As we leave the auditorium, we realize there are still fractures within this modern family. Even though Nina is now in a committed relationship with Louis, the friendly police officer who gave her a ride home after her purse was stolen, Constance disapproves. There’s clearly tension between Nina and Vince, suggesting co-parenting isn’t fully easy. As we fade off into the sunset, it’s Nina and George who spend the afternoon with Molly as they go to coffee to gab. Though they don’t live in the same apartment together (George is still with Paul), their dreams of co-parenting have apparently come true in some regards.

It’s fitting that even this seemingly tidy ending has frayed nerves around the edges. The Object of My Affection stacks plot complications one atop the other rather than just giving Aniston and Rudd free reign to explore their characters. Still, it’s a good reminder that even the happiest of endings are entirely free of conflict or complicated. George and Nina’s bond will always be complex and a bit suffocating. Yet, it’s a strong friendship that’s worth hanging on to.

Previously in Gay Best Friend