A GAY CRUSH. WELL, ALMOST.

by Brandon Judell


Crush, which takes place in a small, picturesque, rural English town, is about three pals, all over-40 women, who are experiencing man trouble or, more correctly, lack-of-man trouble. Kate (Andie MacDowell) is a headmistress at a private school. Molly ( Anna Chancellor), divorced 4 times, is a tres chic physician. As for Janine (Imelda Staunton), she's a short, pleasantly-packed-with-a-few-extra-pounds police inspector.

The trio regularly get together and whine about their predicaments. The winner with the best whine of the day gets a box of caramel biscuits to pig out on. That "Who knows where the time goes?" is being played in the background is no great surprise.

Since misery loves company, the gals are very content until Kate has sex with a former student turned church organist. She meets this Jed, at a funeral, and immediately shags him on a tombstone. One good orgasm leads to another, and eventually the pair decide to marry.

Is Kate out of her mind? Molly and Janine wonder. She must be, so they better break the frolicking twosome up if Kate won't act sanely.

Imagine Four Weddings and A Funeral meets Beaches in this at-times witty, often charming British import that offers up more than a few reasons to view it.

One, at least for the boys, is the young romantic hero played here by Kenny Doughty. Hunky, beautiful, and not afraid of wearing his heart on his sleeve, socks and boxers, he is the ideal lover. And if you can fantasize that you're Andie MacDowell getting regularly shtupped by him, you'll have a grand old time.

Another motive is that one of the three lead female characters turns out to be a lesbian in the last ten minutes of the film. I guess we should now call this the "Jessica Stein Highly Confused Syndrome."

Director/writer John McKay, who comes equipped with Hugh Grant eyes, told me while in New York to promote his feature that the character who goes gay "had had unsatisfactory relationships all her life with men even though she's a compulsive man chaser. By surprise, she tries something different and quite likes it. That doesn't make her a lesbian. If you want to put a label on it, I think she's probably not entirely heterosexual.

"Listen!" he continued. "If you ask most women, 'Did you ever kiss a girl?' some will say yes. And then if you go, 'Would you ever kiss a girl?' quite a few will say, 'Yeah. You know, I'll give it a try once or twice.' If you ask a bunch of men if they'd kiss another guy, no hands will be in the air."

So you believe you've created a temporary lesbian?

"Is she going to stay gay?" McKay ponders. Well, she has had her eyes opened up to something so I think she will take pleasures where she can. In truth, I don't care. I'm sort of happy that she found a solution that wasn't an obsessive pursuit of what she thought she wanted. All three women do. The women at the end of the film find some level of contentment where they wouldn't expect it."

Fifteen minutes later, when the startlingly attractive Andie MacDowell sat down for her Q and A, it was discovered she had a different take on the matter.

"I think maybe she was always a lesbian. She just wasn't ready to say she was a lesbian. It's part of her relationship with me in the film. But that's all speculation."

I noted then that if I had a sex-change operation, meeting Andie would definitely turn me into a lesbian.

After a moment of looking puzzled, she replied, "You're sweet. That took me a minute. I like that. Thank you. But can I say real quick, because I think your question was a really good one, ultimately what the story is about is the relationships between these 3 women: How dysfunctional they are in the very beginning. They're dependent on each other in a very unhealthy way. They're dependent on each other being fat, and it's not a good friendship. What happens with Jed is that he's like an angel that comes into their lives and changes all three of these people forever and they become better people and better friends."

Changing the subject to her copulating on screen with Doughty, Andie held forth, we were both kind of shy. In the first lovemaking scene where we make it on the tombstone, everything that goes across my face is not just pleasure. It's fear, it's what I'm doing, it's loneliness. It's all those things, and I get to say a great comic line: 'well, Jed, nice organ.' I mean how many times do you get to do a scene like that? It's fabulous. It was a little cold. Kenny had to expose his little butt."

Piping in out of nowhere, Great Britain's newest sex symbol notes: "It was colder for me."

And that's another reason to see Crush.