This knowing meta-moment is writer/director Rob Williams' challenge to himself not to fall into the trap of clichés when a crowd of guys, each kind of representing a particular type of modern gay man, pair off and bed hop and have minor emotional crises along the way. His success rate: I'd say about 75 percent.
The lovely home in question belongs to affluent and committed couple Jason (Douglas Myers) and Simon (Derek Meeker), whose issue is boredom with their relationship. To shake things up, they've invited two friends to the cabin, and each of the foursome has also invited a single friend to potentially make some sparks fly. Much older (as in 40) Cooper (Derek Long) brings his younger plaything Ace (Stephen Twardokus), and the rest of the house fills up with Mac (Chris Cameron), a nervous and semi-closeted kid who's so self-conscious he can't look at himself in a mirror; Kevin (Gaetano Jones), a nude yoga instructor who walks around saying namaste to everyone and is more than ready to give Mac a sexual awakening; Cameron (Joel Harrison), a party kid who brings body paint and glitter expecting a three-day rave; and Andre (Daniel Rhyder), a hustler with a heart of gold who -- oops! -- turns out to have serviced three of the other men in the house in the past. Busy guy!
Now stir vigorously. To recount who ends up fooling around with whom would read like box scores. Suffice it to say that all sorts of tensions, jealousies, and fights ensue, most based around central questions about where sex and love intersect and how gay men are supposed to find meaningful relationships in a community that doesn't always value them and that also suffers a serious generation gap (let's turn tricks and party vs. let's settle down together and get a mountain cabin and a mortgage).
Unlike, say, The Boys in the Band or The Broken Hearts Club, 3-Day Weekend is populated by uniformly nice guys. There's not a single bitchy queen throwing barbed remarks among them. While the addition of one might have helped add a little zip to the script, it would also have led the film into cliché territory, so Williams chooses instead to make his points in a relatively calm atmosphere, even if Andre the hustler does shake things up by bouncing from guy to guy when not lounging nude (with one knee strategically bent for modesty) by the hot tub.
Aka Three Day Weekend.
Not in the band.
