A Gay New World

Who needs High School Musical 3 when director Tom Gustafson’s fantastical indie film Were the World Mine (in NYC and San Francisco November 21) has jocks cuter than Zac Efron singing and dancing to catchier tunes?

While studying lines for the part of Puck in his class production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, bullied gay prep school student Timothy (the captivating Tanner Cohen, who has an angelic face and a voice to match), finds a recipe for the play’s love potion hidden in the text. He Puckishly whips it up and uses it on his crush — sexy rugby player Jonathan (Nathaniel David Becker) — and a slew of other homophobes, turning his hometown into a same-sex-loving city.

The walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes message can be heavy-handed, but the instantly addictive music more than makes up for it. Centuries-old Shakespeare lines, like those from the title track  — “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?/ I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again/ Mine ear is much enamored of thy note/ So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape” — sound at home in pop music, making the Bard’s classic verses once again contemporary.


Were the World Mine opens November 21 in New York and San Francisco, and in other cities throughout December and January (see release schedule here).