By Liza Swart

Okay, so this is one you need to stick with for the long haul.

Upon getting a look at the slick packaging and platitudes from major media (CRITIC’S PICK! says the New York Times), I’ll admit, I had higher hopes. I say higher, and not high, because let’s face it–gay and lesbian films are not typically known for high budgets, high drama or high acting. At the beginning of Private Romeo, it looked par for the course, until…

“Is this whole thing in Shakespeare?” Faith asked.

I was having my own problems.

“Are they trying to say there’s only eight men at a military academy? That dress-right-dress is all jacked up. Are they wearing berets or not?”

You could say we were thoroughly distracted, and it wasn’t by the hot-and-heavy 2-on-2 pickup games of hoops.

Private Romeo starts slow. So slow, in fact, that after Faith wondered aloud what the reason was to keep watching, she asked me to continue on alone, later. Plus that part was spooky and confusing. Then again, who doesn’t bust rhymes in a darkened stairwell while hanging out with their possibly schizophrenic friends on the way to a poker game?

Done. I continued on alone.

At the subsequent card party, I finally figured out who Romeo (played by Seth Numrich) and Juliet (Matt Doyle) were. Their gentle flirting (I like your kicks, man. Is that the LIVESTRONG bracelet?) could have been crime-worthy, but ended up being strangely endearing.

“Oh, so that means they both die?” Faith asked, paying attention momentarily. “They’re both really cute.”

Indeed, Juliet’s eyelashes and eagerness to smile were infectious. It was easy to see why Romeo fell.

Clearly set before any type of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal environment, Juliet’s friends in particular seem to be bothered by R & J’s obvious attraction. Mercutio, played by a marvelously compelling Hale Appleman, is convincingly, deliciously creepy. He attempts to defuse the situation when Tybalt’s ire is raised at R&J’s impromptu makeout session. Likewise, Romeo’s pals Benvolio and the Friar seem good with the gay.

The film is strewn with thoughtful, well-placed touches when adapting Shakespeare for a modern setting. Fellow cadets are referred to as “kinsman,” and the room where R & J “marry” (read: unknown encounter, possibly sexual in nature) is the “Chemistry Lab.” The infamous “Livestrong” bracelet is referenced again, this time as the ring with which J summons R.

The storyline is helped along by a delicately wistful piano soundtrack by Nicholas Wright and several indie rock songs from Brooklyn-based Bishop Allen, including “The Magpie” and “Busted Heart.” The cinematography and incredibly strong song choices help give the feel of modern young men hanging out in barracks or wrestling with thoughts in the middle of the night. I’m a music snob, and the soundtrack was one place where “Private Romeo” nailed it.

Other things didn’t translate well at all, most notably keeping the female references in place. The cast almost seems to laugh at the ridiculousness of feminine personas when addressing the nurse. The same actors who played Benvolio (Charlie Barnett) and Mercutio are used again for Juliet’s parents, and it flat out doesn’t work. The section should have been cut entirely.

As Tybalt and Mercutio are “slain,” they just punch each other and have an ambulance respond. While probably more realistic in the given setting, for Shakespeare aficionados, their lack of demise is startling. SPOILER ALERT: Their fisticuffs serve as a foreshadowing for R & J’s outcome, though placing the “poison” for J’s coma into a canteen was a nice touch.

The story, though ending with R & J’s discovery as lovers and not their deaths, remains decidedly more positive in outcome than the Bard’s original. Less doom, more gloom.

I’m glad I stuck with the whole film, beyond being merely mandated to watch it for this article. The character development pulled me in. R & J’s chemistry was palpable. I’m a nitpicker, especially on the military elements, but you could take all of that away and the story would still remain. Beyond gender, time and place, Private Romeo is, at its heart, a story about Truth and Love. And what’s not to love about that?

Faith’s parting shot:

I wanted to stop watching because I simply did not care what happened. It took too long to reveal who the protagonist/antagonist were and how the well-known family feud was to play out in this ghost-town military academy with only a handful of actors present. I’m assuming he was following some sort of “show, don’t tell” that high-minded movies and books strive for, but the trick with that is you still have to show. The movie doesn’t even identify who the main characters were, let alone provide reasons to care about them. And the ranting scene in the stairwell was not overly spooky, just random. Up to that point, it was one of the longest deliveries in the movie, so we didn’t really know if that was normal for him or why it was significant, nor what he is ranting about since we know nothing of the characters, their struggles and conflicts.

The movie “Bully” opened in select theaters across the country on March 20^th. It opened everywhere April 13^th. While it addresses some LGBT youth, its focus is much broader. It’s about bullied kids from all walks of life—picked on primarily because they were different.

I went and saw the movie last night, just over a week after it came out in San Diego, expecting a nice crowd of concerned citizens to be there with me. After all, I went to see it in Hillcrest, the trendy, hip gayborhood of San Diego. Including me and my friend Chris, there were twelve of us in the theater. Worse than that, before the movie I texted several of my friends to tell them I was going and to see who wanted to go. Not one of them even knew about the movie’s existence. Not one. I have hip friends. I have activist friends. I have friends who were bullied and who believe in and fight for the cause. Yet few of my friends have any clue what this movie is or why they should see it. This is tragic.

This movie, that profiles a number of tweens and teens as they struggle with their bullies, is a brilliant film. It’s raw, deep, and painfully real. The truly cold hearted still wipe their eyes after watching the funeral for an 11 year old boy who killed himself after being relentlessly bullied. This movie is powerful, and it addresses a subject very uncomfortable for most of us to talk about because we don’t have a good solution. It’s easy as an adult to say “kids will be kids” and “bullying makes them learn to stick up for themselves.” It’s easy, that is, until the dead kid is one you know.

Why am I mad? Simple. This movie should be mandatory for all kids aged 9-19. They should play it in every middle and high school in America and there should be an attendance roster signed by each kid. Then they need to have PTA meetings where parents have to come, and the parents need to watch the movie, too. For this issue to stand a chance and getting fixed, it’s going to take all hands on deck. This isn’t something that only teachers can fight. This isn’t something only for the school’s campus police. This isn’t a problem for the (far too few) Gay-Straight Alliances across our Nation’s grade school campuses. This is a community problem that needs wholesale community support to resolve.

Tragically timed, Sioux City, Iowa lost another of its children last week to suicide. Kenneth Weishuhn was a 14-year-old boy from South O’Brien High School who committed suicide, not long after coming out to his friends as gay. The Sioux City Journal could have simply run a story about this terrible loss. They could have simply printed an obituary and moved on to other news. However, in an act of journalistic bravery and integrity, they chose to run a full page opinion piece on the front page of Sunday’s paper.  Sioux City got it right.

Bullying isn’t just limited to K-12, of course. It happens in college. It happens in the workplace. It happens in our military. Just this week, Huffington Post reported an incident involving a Command Sergeant Major allegedly bullying a female Captain, who happened to be dancing at a command function with her girlfriend. The investigation is still pending, but if even a fraction of what was reported was true, it underlines just how serious of an issue bullying can be. This incident involves adults—military professionals—and an accusation of behavior expected from a drunken high school senior at a rural prom versus from the senior enlisted advisor to a battalion commander. Although Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has come out strongly against bullying, this problem will not disappear with harsh words alone. Action at the grass roots level—changing habits of thought and habits of action—is the only way that bullying can be effectively eliminated.

It’s going to take more than the limited funding that the Bully Project has on hand to spread the word effectively. As things stand right now, this movie will probably not remain in theaters more than a few more weeks. It’s simply too expensive and too obscure to remain long term in the mainstream. That is a tragedy. In a perfect world, I could donate $10 million to the project so that they could bolster their national media campaign. I would raise awareness of the movie and the issue. I would force this to be an issue in the next presidential campaign.

I just wish that some of the cause’s biggest advocates, the Lady Gaga’s of the world, would step up and make this happen. Give some very large donations to really help change perceptions and raise awareness. The issue of bullying has been around for years, but it doesn’t make it right. Just because you survived being bullied doesn’t mean that kids should have to do it alone. Any life lost because of bullying is one too many. Take a stand with me. Raise awareness. Go see the movie and write about it on FaceBook. Tweet about it. Tell your friends and make them go see it. This movie is changing lives, but it’s not changing enough of them fast enough. And the one it misses might just be a kid you love.

By Liza Swart

When the guys on the editorial staff and I were divvying up assignments for this issue, it seemed inevitable that I—and my movie-loving plus-one, Faith—would be tackling this particular project. “A Marine Story,” following the life of a recently-discharged lesbian under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), wasn’t the first thing my male cohorts thought of on a Saturday night. After watching this film, however, I strongly believe they should.

After the lights were dimmed in my Maryland barracks room, Faith and I noticed that the film starred Dreya Weber, an actress we had previously seen in “The Gymnast,” which was produced in 2006. Weber has the unusual combination of power and grace in strong feminine roles, so I looked forward to her treatment of an ousted Marine major.

The film has considerable beauty and truth, but descends into cliché on more than one occasion. Watching as a military member, small errors stuck out like sore thumbs: a local cop calls Alex Everett (played by Weber) a soldier, and she doesn’t correct him. If the former Marine had in fact been a decorated officer, gunnery sergeant and drill instructor in her long military career, I couldn’t imagine she would let that slide. Later, before a fight in the local bar, we found ourselves groaning (and not in a good way) over dialogue between Alex and the hometown rednecks about gender roles. Again, with Alex’s first visit to a gay bar, she is told “Sailor, relax” by a friend. I had to pause and rewind to make sure I was hearing it right. No devil dog I’ve ever met would put up with being confused for a squid.

What the movie misses in the minutia, it makes up for in spades elsewhere. The film conveys much through silence and imagery, and the cinematography is stunning. Several times, I had to remind myself it was an independent film, largely financed, I would later learn in an interview with Weber, from the producers themselves. Additionally, Weber is an utterly convincing career Marine, and the film fleshes out a largely absent past in delightful nuance for military or veteran viewers. She holds on to her Marine ideals and honorable discharge, even though the Corps has dishonored her at a fundamental level.

“A Marine Story” really finds its feet in the relationship between Alex and Saffron, a local young woman with a troubled past and sullen, sidelong glances. Having gone through a training environment with a Marine gunny, I found Weber’s treatment of Alex’s drill instructor persona entirely believable. All of the drinking, fighting and personal problems Alex struggles with through the rest of the film melt away as she prepares Saffron for Marine boot camp. Here, Alex finds her Zen.

Saffron, played by Paris Pickard, also finds her purpose in training. Outside of where these women are fulfilling their Marine roles, their lives are in shambles. Their mirroring in ages and Marine careers—one already over, one just beginning—furthers this point.

From a purely aesthetic level, watching P90X-veteran Weber perform in this role is a delight. Alex has to hose herself off after a lingering look at Saffron following a run, and it’s easy to see why: both women are in tremendous shape.

Ultimately, the question “A Marine Story” raises is one of self-worth beyond the rigid definitions of an authority structure. As Alex comes to terms with her need for self-acceptance and Saffron finds her own path, they learn to affirm themselves beyond the bounds of the military, alcohol, drugs and relationships. They both revere the Corps, and are made better by it. The real gift Alex is able to give Saffron, however, is the gift of a future. In doing so, she finds her own.

By Liza Swart

Read the movie review here.

After viewing “A Marine Story,” starring Dreya Weber, I was given an opportunity to sit down for a lengthy phone interview with the actress. While I was impressed with the film, I was even more impressed with Weber, her passion for performance, and the gravity with which she took on the role of a Marine major named Alex, discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). Witty, smart and well-versed in her subject matter, Weber brought new depth to her role in this timely and important film.

Liza: What kind of training or experience did you take on for this role?
Dreya: I met a wonderful man named Paul Iwamoto, who was Cher’s head of security. He used to train some of the dancers on the tour in martial arts. I knew that he was a well-known teacher and would teach Navy SEALs. He’s like 70 years old, Japanese, and has been a student of martial arts for 55 years. He’s incredible. He’s this deadly, lethal weapon. I asked him if he would train me, because there were several real-world scenarios of readiness at any moment that I thought Alex would have. The cool thing about her, because she was a Mustang, and because she comes from a military family, was that she understood she would be more respected particularly as a woman if she were enlisted first. We don’t really talk about it in the movie, but I wanted it to feel like it was there, like she’d be a super overachiever, that she probably would have studied a lot of martial arts.

L: Have you had much interaction with the military prior to this film, and how as this changed your perception of those discharged under DADT?
D: I don’t have any active-duty family. My father was in the Air Force. But it was something I had to learn about. I found it so incredibly moving that people were willing to be closeted and only represent a partial experience as a human being to their workmates, to their colleagues, to their friends even, because of this call to service. It’s something that I didn’t expect to learn, and when I did kind of have my eyes and mind open to it, I thought it was really beautiful. I found it more moving that people who are gay and lesbian chose to stay in because of their loyalty to this idea, even with the incredible foundational conflict of ‘I’m supposed to be honorable and tell the truth, and I can’t tell the truth, I can’t be truthful, but I’m going to be a model and hold myself to this high standard.’ It was a very unexpected lesson.

L: How did you envision Alex’s growth throughout the film, and what do you think was her biggest area of growth?
D: I think that the biggest thing was her ability to bring herself to her life. That she actually was living with the gal she falls for in the film, that her expression of who she is, is the big change. The beautiful trade-off between Saffron and Alex has an effect on Alex that is very positive. Because Saffron is at such a turning point in her life, and because Alex asks her to step up, Alex realizes she can actually be in the world. It’s a great problem to think about for someone who has defined herself for so long in a particular world.

L: To that end, do you see Alex’s discharge as almost a positive event in her life?
D: No, I think “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is and was a tragedy. Unfortunately, tragedy happens in our lives. The opportunity that tragedy gives us is to try to turn it into a positive. How can we grow, how can we not be self destructive or destructive to others.

L: You seemed to have several target audiences in the film: the military, small-town America, even queer people themselves. What were you trying to say to each of those audiences?
D: It’s a movie, and neither the director nor I believe that polemics is a way to change anyone’s mind. So, to make a film that was entertaining, that would perhaps make people change their minds or at least reconsider the policy, was certainly the first thing. The second thing was to make an enjoyable film, in particular to me, to mix it up and have a female action character. Really, Alex is a role that would be a guy in any other movie. She’s like the cowboy who comes into town with the mystery. She’s got a chip on her shoulder, befriends the underdog, and is a little bit of a hothead. All of those ingredients are much more traditionally male than female. That part is certainly something that interested me, to see if we could successfully do that.

L: Alex seemed to talk more as the film went on. In the beginning of the film, she had long stretches of silence. What was going on in her head during those times?
D: I think it’s so disorienting to be spat out of your world. Anybody who loses their job after a long period of time probably goes through the same thing. Alex is in shock. She loves the military and considers it the best thing that ever happened to her. She was rejected from something that she loves, that she has dedicated her life to. She’s trying to suppress her rage, which is why she’s drinking so much. I think she’s furious, but she can’t be furious at the military because she loves it. She loves service, she loves the Corps, she loves what she’s able to do, what she’s done. She’s proud. But they don’t want her to do it if she loves a woman. So she has this fury that has no way to express itself, other than getting drunk and punching a guy. In her self-destructive behavior, she is just trying to keep a lid on this confusion and anger. I think it’s somebody holding on really, really tight.

L: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the LGBT military community?
D: I would love to thank everyone for their service. I’m so grateful for people who have the call to serve and make that commitment and sacrifice for us. We’re very fortunate. In particular for the LGBT community, because it’s so incredibly moving to me that people are willing to sacrifice. Thank goodness DADT was overturned. It took too long. I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner.