Or, Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy, The (2000). The beginning was interesting enough for me to decide to stay up past midnight (I feel so old!) to watch it.
It's a gay circle-of-friends soap-opera-esque ensemble growing-up comedy about a man realising that he's not really advancing as a person; getting a bit tired of the West Hollywood scene and what it expects a gay man to be, and his group of friends.
I'm not sure if it's just that I've been thinking about the general area lately, but I found the film treated some realistic problems in a sensible and sensitive manner. For example, the way you can be worn down and feel your friends are the worst thing to happen to you, and that they're restricting you and your growth, and the rest of the time you realise how you'd never survive without them. One character examines how being gay (or maybe just "in the game") and not being good-looking and glib and so forth feels.
But you don't need to take that too seriously. It's got some very cutesy moments (although I think romantic isn't deserved), and it has a number of good one-liners and even some continuing gags. It tries to humourously explain some gay West Hollywood (or sometimes universal) jargon. (One of the funniest definitions is for ``Five months later''...).
The acting was actually reasonably good, with the lead Timothy Olyphant probably the best of the bunch. One actor I was surprised to see was Frasier's John Mahoney, playing the paternal figure to the younger members of the group, and in a long-term relationship with his boyfriend; they run a restaurant where most of the group do at least some work. The only other actor I knew by name was Dean Cain (Clark of Lois and Clark).
I've read reviews subsequently that accused the story just about being gay, and others that it was a good movie where being gay was just a minor attribute. Well, I'd say that a lot of the film is about gay issues. The lead has a group of gay friends. He is putting thought into the way he and they behave. He's thinking that he hasn't matured much since his coming out; ``I'm 28 years old and all I'm good at is being gay''.
I suppose it's like saying that the Friends crowd are always acting straight, or that being straight is only a minor part of their lives. I mean, they're constantly falling in love and getting into weird situations that gay guys (gender neutral) wouldn't. Same with the Friends (and TBHC) folk are Western/US white people...
While I'm hesitant to say there wasn't stereotyping, no real mistakes were made on the gay aspect of the characters. Which is to be expected from director and writer Greg Berlanti (who wrote for Dawson's Creek and Everwood).
What's quite surprising is how plain ordinary the characters and their problems are - the only way that's able to be made obvious if for them to whine as much as they do. Not that that's not ordinary! There's no contrived and complex problem that they have to whackily overcome; it's not that sort of comedy.
We're not stuck with either people being uncomfortable being gay (besides the newbie); that's something considered won. I'm relieved there's no ailing gay AIDS sufferer drawn in for some cheap points.
So, if you're not bothered by the thought of boys being after boys, it's a lot better than most things billed as romantic comedies these days, and it's quite a fun world to live in for an hour and a half. So, it's a ``watch'', in the 7/10 area.
(Ok, that's all I have; still recovering from being sick. Hope it wasn't too incoherent.)