Tagline: A romantic comedy about a brother, a sister and the girl of their dreams.
Gray Matters movie storyline. Gray and Sam are brother and sister and best friends, flatmates in New York City, where she creates ad campaigns and he’s a surgery intern. Their social life is too insular, so they head to a dog park so Sam can, maybe, meet a woman. He does – Charlie – a zoologist new in the city; he likes her immediately, and the feeling seems mutual. As the three of them spend time together, what if Gray’s feelings for Charlie aren’t just sisterly? Not only might this explain her solitary life, but it could lead to real dilemmas – with Charlie (who’s sweet, but a bit opaque) and with Sam. No advice comes from Gray’s therapist, but a co-worker and a cab driver give theirs. Can Gray sort things out?
“Gray Matters” centers on a woman named Gray (Heather Graham) and her brother (James Marsden), both of whom fall in love with the same woman (Saffron Burrows). Spacek stars as Graham’s therapist, while Cumming plays a cab driver who becomes a confidant to Graham’s character. Krakowski is the colleague and best friend of Graham’s character.
Gray Matters is a 2006 American romantic comedy film directed by Sue Kramer, starring Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, and Bridget Moynahan. It premiered on October 21, 2006 at the Hamptons International Film Festival and had a United States limited theatrical release on February 23, 2007. Both Alan Cumming and Rachel Shelley are significant actors to the LGBT community. Cumming is openly bisexual and an LGBT rights activist, and Shelley has become familiar to queer audiences in her role of Helena Peabody in The L Word, on which Cumming has guest-starred.
About the Production
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. — Dr. Seuss
This above all: To thine own self be true. — William Shakespeare
They finish each other’s sentences, dance like Fred and Ginger, and they’re all hearing wedding bells. All? No ménage-a-tois here — just siblings Gray and Sam (Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh), thirty-something New Yorkers so compatible they share a downtown loft, love to watch the same classic movies, jog together, look out for each other and, to their biggest surprise, wind up falling in love with the same woman. But while Charlie (Bridget Moynahan) adores her sister-in-law to be, and Sam has finally found the perfect mate, Gray has feelings for Charlie that are turning her life inside out. And why not?
Charlie’s a successful zoologist with a wit as sharp as her looks. She’s the girl next door that any guy would fall for, so why is Gray so preoccupied with her? Whatever the reason, she’s certainly not going to tell anybody about it. The darling of her advertising firm, Gray has to keep her focus on her clients – especially the fussy, gorgeous, really important, sexy, lose-your-job-if-you’re-not-attentive-to clients like Julia Bartlett (L Word glamour girl Rachel Shelley). Yes, Gray’s got to keep her mind on her work and deal with this emerging sexuality stuff later. After all, as her therapist Dr. Sydney (Oscar winner Sissy Spacek) is quick to point out, Gray might be just misguided or simply suffering from a case of sibling rivalry gone awry.
Still, Gray needs to talk to someone about it. Surely her friend and co-worker Carrie (Saturday Night Live Emmy nominee Molly Shannon) would understand… but then the whole office would find out. She could certainly go to her brother, but he’s kind of busy these days. Not only is he a vascular surgical intern at Mount Sinai, but he’s also getting married and dealing with matters of his own heart. No, best not to talk to the groom if you’re dying to kiss his bride… again!
But Gray’s simply got to confide in someone – or maybe denial would just be easier. Yes, that’s the answer. She’ll just head straight for the next guy she finds remotely attractive. She’ll make herself available to men like never before, and sooner or later that old familiar sexuality of hers is bound to kick in. Right?
Wrong – even the friendly cabdriver Gordy (Tony award winner Alan Cumming), who has been shuttling Gray to and from her mismatches, can see she needs to start looking for love in different places. In fact, Gray’s predicament is so black and white to Gordy, he’s willing to be her wingman and put on a dress to drag her where she needs to go.
Set in the city of New York, itself a character, Gray Matters features a wonderful supporting cast and a special performance of “I Will Survive” by Grammy-winner Gloria Gaynor. A charming romance, a tender comedy, the story of Gray’s quest to find out who she really is gives a whole new meaning to love… and destiny.
Heather Graham in Gray Matters
When a man and a woman are competing for the same woman on the big screen, heterosexuality almost always wins out. Since 1967’s The Fox (which showed the first lesbian kiss on the big screen), there has been no shortage of cinematic love-triangles in which the lesbian ends up the loser in the end, like Personal Best (1982), Basic Instinct (1992), Three of Hearts (1993), and Lost & Delirious (2001).
Even comedies like The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and Switch (1991) have exploited the unrequited lesbian crush for laughs.
The occasional film leaves it open-ended as to who wins the girl, like Higher Learning (1992) and Femme Fatale (2002), while in still others, no one wins, like the upcoming Head in the Clouds (2004).
Then there are the handful of movies in which the lesbian relationship triumphs, including Desert Hearts (1986), Bound (1996), When Night is Falling (1995), Show Me Love (1998) and Being John Malcovich (1999). But these are almost always independent films, and, with a few exceptions, rarely include well-known actors.
The upcoming film Gray Matters (2006) is a an indie film full of well-known actors dealing with a similar scenario–a woman and her brother fall for the same woman–and it isn’t yet clear which category this film will fall into.
Written and directed by Sue Kramer, Gray Matters features Heather Graham (Austin Powers 2, From Hell, Boogie Nights) as Gray, and James Marsden (X-Men, X2, and Ally McBeal) as her brother, while Saffron Burrows (Frida, Timecode, Deep Blue Sea, Circle of Friends), plays their love interest.
In addition to the three main characters, Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom, Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter) plays Gray’s therapist, Alan Cumming (X2, Anniversary Party, Spy Kids) co-stars as a cab driver who becomes Gray’s confidant, and Jane Krakowski (Ally McBeal, Dance With Me, Marci X) rounds out the cast as Gray’s colleague and best friend.
The cast has some experience playing gay characters. Graham played a social-climbing bisexual character Bowfinger (1999) and a lesbian in Kiss & Tell (2000), and Burrows played a bisexual woman in Mike Figgis’ experimental film Timecode (2000). Burrows is also openly bisexual in real life, as is Alan Cumming (who has also played sexually ambiguous characters on-screen).
It’s not clear yet whether Graham’s character is a lesbian or bisexual, or whether Burrows’s character is even gay at all (lesbians falling for straight women are hardly rare in cinema). Since the film has Gray’s name in the title, and since all of the supporting cast are for characters connected to Gray rather than to her brother or her love interest, the story appears to be told from Gray’s perspective–which doesn’t necessarily mean she will get the girl in the end, but it at least increases the odds that she won’t be killed off ala The Fox or Lost & Delirious.
The current trend in cinema is towards portraying lesbianism in a more positive light (in films like Under the Tuscan Sun and the upcoming films Eulogy and D.E.B.S.), but there are still plenty of recent examples otherwise: Lost and Delirious, Aimee and Jaguar, Mulholland Drive, and the upcoming lesbian-serial-killer film Monster, for example.
But while recent portrayals of lesbians on the big screen may be a mix of positive and negative, bisexual women almost never fare well on film, at least not romantically; according to recent films like The Hours, Frida, and Gigli, bisexual women are mentally unstable and always choose men over women.
Bisexual women are getting more attention in film than they used to, and are portrayed more sympathetically these days, but they rarely end up living happily ever after.
Whether Graham’s and Burrows’ characters are lesbian or bisexual, a happy-ever-after lesbian relationship between them would be a nice contrast to the more tragic or unhappy endings to lesbian relationships we’ve seen on-screen lately. The very fact that the film attracted so many big-name stars seems like a positive sign–but then, The Hours did too, and that wasn’t exactly a happy ending.
Given Burrows’ and Cumming’s outspoken support for gay rights, however, it seems unlikely they would sign on to a film that gives short shrift to lesbian relationships. So even if Gray doesn’t get the girl in the end, perhaps she will triumph in some other way. It’s not ideal, but it’s a start.
Gray Matters (2007)
Directed by: Sue Kramer
Starring: Heather Graham, James Marsden, Tom Cavanagh, Bridget Moynahan, Molly Shannon, Alan Cumming, Rachel Shelley, Sissy Spacek, Samantha Ferris, April Telek, Tim Perez
Screenplay by: Sue Kramer
Production Design by: Linda Del Rosario, Richard Paris
Cinematography by: John S. Bartley
Film Editing by: Wendey Stanzler
Costume Design by: Sheila Bingham
Set Decoration by: Diane Nachlik
Music by: Andrew Hollander
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content.
Distributed by: Yari Film Group
Release Date: February 23, 2007
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