Floored by Love
Reel Affirmations 2005
Review by Nancy Legato
Rating: 
(2 out of 5)
Friday, 10/21/2005, 6:00 PM
Feature presentation, $0 at Cecile Goldman Theater at the DCJCC
DIRECTOR AND CO-SCREENWRITER Desiree Lim’s comedy Floored by Love brings us not one, but two queer Canadian families trying to re-establish footing as outside factors threaten to unravel their fragile equilibrium. Janet and Cara (Shirley Ng and Natalie Sky) debate whether to get married under British Columbia’s newly-minted gay marriage law. Meanwhile, Cara handles pressure from her parents to settle down with a man. Cara doesn’t even want to come out to her tradition-minded Chinese parents, while Janet has already prematurely told her reluctantly supportive Japanese mom that she intends to marry Cara.
Elsewhere in Vancouver, straight stepdad Norman (Michael Robinson) competes for his gay son Jesse’s (Trenton Millar) love and approval with Jesse’s biological father Daniel (Andrew McIlady). The fact that Norman is an unhip hippie and perfect candidate for a ”queer eye” makeover doesn’t help his chances with Jesse, who’s thrilled to spend some gay bonding time with Daniel, a New York actor and homo extraordinaire who breezes into town for a quick visit.
Floored by Love has flashes of wit, but mostly it’s merely amusing. The weak pun of the title (revealed in the film’s final scenes, so I won’t ruin it for you) is emblematic of a script that could have used a lot more punching up in the early draft stages. And the ticky-tacky music sometimes precariously paired with the rhythm of the scene around it doesn’t help much. The overall bland flavor of the film is sweetened with a dab of Janet’s and Cara’s respective parents, who get points just for being older parents trying to deal with their gay kids in a new country and a different culture, but it’s not enough to turn Floored by Love into a flooring experience for the viewer.
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