We are up to the “Vanity Picture” stage of LGBTQ+ film. Congratulations? Ummm … I never thought you could do it? I guess the question is whether or not I should be excited as LGBTQ+ milestones pass. With Things Like This, I am reminded of Shannon Faulkner, the pioneering first female cadet at The Citadel … who dropped out of school a week later. *sigh* If this is progress, it’s hiding itself pretty well.
In the opening of this film, a toned and handsome gay man walks out on his relationship with our hero, Zack Anthony (writer/director/star Max Talisman). The breakup is a one-sided litany of “I’m too good for you,” which marks the first and last time I felt sorry for Zack Anthony in this film.
Was the boyfriend too good for him? Well, Zack Anthony is directionless, broke, unrealistic, borderline morbidly obese, and clearly at least a little vain … but given that the breakup was filled with such venom, maybe not.
Meanwhile, in another film, Zack Mandel (Joey Pollari) is questioning his own relationship. It, too, shows great imbalance as his partner is far more into it than Zack is. There is going to be heartache here before long, we can tell.
So, naturally, the two men are going to meet and fall in love, right? Well … yes. That’s it. There’s your movie. This is complicated by the fact that both men are highly insecure, but in different ways. Goll darnit, how can we get this dynamo of sexual tension moving? *sigh*
I had three major problems with this film: 1) The plot is exceptionally shallow, even for a romcom. which is a really low bar. Truth is there not much depth to this film at all. It seems like the film was invested in the one big joke that both leads have the same 
name and left it at that. 2) There is no real build-up to the double Zack attack; Zack’s Anthony and Mandel both fall for each other almost instantly, which happens in real life, to be sure, but is a pretty piss-poor film gambit. 3) Max Talisman is a terrible actor. Like OMG bad. Like, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY DIDN’T YOU CAST SOMEBODY BESIDES YOURSELF IN YOUR FILM?!” bad. I went straight from this film to one starring the Weeknd, and Weeknd gets the nod, acting-wise, hands down.
Things Like This gets kudos for being LGBTQ+. I’m really glad gay-themed pictures are mainstreamed these days. But that’s exactly where my love for this film ends. Max Talisman clearly sees himself as a gay Millennial Woody Allen, which would be an apt comparison is Talisman were a little better at acting, and a lot better at writing and directing. I’m not saying there was no merit to this film, but if you’re gonna have scenes where the writer/director/star gets praised lavishly by the co-star, hoo-boy, that’s pretty much a deal breaker right there. [You didn’t really just write and act scene where the co-star tells you how great you are, did you? You see how cringe that is, right? Right?!]
There was once a lonely single named Zack
Who felt his life under attack
Then along came his mate
Another Zack to date!
That’s all ya got? This shit is wack
Not Rated, 99 Minutes
Director: Max Talisman
Writer: Max Talisman
Genre: Student films
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The LGBTQ+ desperate
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Wow, is there some terrible acing in this film. What’s that? The writer/director? Oh. Shrug.”
