Movie Review: ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’

Review: ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’
Director by Ryan Gielen
Writers by Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez
Staring Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez, Joie Bauer

“Everybody lies to everybody else about everything,” says a supporting character early in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, a micro budget indie feature directed by Ryan Gielen and written by Brian W. Seibert and Ricardo Valdez, who also star. The film often demonstrates the truth of those words, but also shows how people earnestly try to overcome them.

The film centers on Will (Seibert) and Mateo (Valdez), a gay couple, as a large crowd of largely LGBT friends gather around their house and backyard to celebrate Will’s 30th birthday. Though the movie centers heavily on interactions between gay and lesbian characters, it’s really not about LGBT issues: It’s about people in relationships, and how they try to work past their secrets and lies.

Early in the film, before the party starts, Will’s sister, her husband and young daughter in tow, unexpectedly show up at Will and Mateo’s place and discover a shirtless Mateo emerging from Will’s bathroom. “This isn’t normal,” says Will’s sister, fleeing with her family. The interesting trick this film pulls is that it doesn’t then take the obvious route, becoming a film about coming out to family and struggling for acceptance. It’s more modern than that. See, Will had told Mateo that his family knew he was out. And in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, that’s much more significant than his family’s disapproval of his gay lifestyle. Those are the lies, the film argues, that truly threaten our happiness: The ones we make to our partners.

Over the course of ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, many secrets and lies are revealed. Among them: Mateo’s fling with Will’s personal trainer, a transgression that Will and Mateo must ultimately discuss together. Moments like this lend heartfelt emotion and charged conflict to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the film can’t always escape the dullness of an at-times leisurely birthday party, and the movie has its slow stretches. But the film’s emotional richness helps it overcome the limitations of its setting (and of its tiny budget) more often than not.

“Being gay isn’t all that I’m about,” says a gay “Log Cabin” Republican partway through the film, defending his political affiliation. Taken in larger context, this is a broader statement about the film. The film may be about gay couples, but it really isn’t about being gay. Despite a late return from Will’s closed-minded sister, Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’ largely takes place in an era, or at least a locality, in which gay acceptance is the norm. But that’s just it: Even when everyone’s out, we see that gay relationships, like anyone else’s, can be full of dishonesties and secrets that have nothing to do with being gay. Being out doesn’t mean that couples are out about everything.

Read the review at IndieNYC.com


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