Cicada

The writer, director and star Matthew Fifer draws on his own life for a New York love story.

Whichever way you look at it, there could hardly be a more personal movie than this. Although Matthew Fifer has a co-director in Kieran Mulcare, this debut feature finds him taking the main writing credit and assisting in the editing. In addition to that, he plays the leading role himself and his source material is semi-autobiographical (the film is stated to be based on true events). What has emerged is a storyline that encompasses a whole range of subject matter, all of it strongly felt but not always well arranged.

At heart, Cicada comes across as a love story, one that is centred on a man of thirty, Ben (that’s Fifer’s role), and on Sam (Sheldon D. Brown), who is a few years younger. They meet and fall in love in New York, a situation that at once finds two issues confronting them. First, there's the fact that Ben has come out and has a sympathetic bond with his mother (Sandra Bauleo) while, in contrast, Sam has kept his sexuality secret. Sam's father, Francis (Michael Potts), is a deeply religious man and that probably adds to Sam's reluctance to come out but, inevitably, his wish to hide things complicates life for the couple. However, an even more potent concern over reactions to their relationship also exists and that lies in the fact that Ben is white and Sam black.

There would be enough here to fuel an entire film, but as Cicada develops it takes on even more. We soon realise that both Ben and Sam need to come to terms with events that have marked them. Flashbacks to Ben's childhood and a current news story about abuse can both be read as likely indicators that Ben himself was abused as a youngster and this indeed becomes a key aspect of Cicada which Fifer acknowledges as being his own story. In a telling scene Sam reveals to Ben the incident that has affected him but Ben, who suffers from psychosomatic symptoms and regularly visits a doctor in addition to having therapy, finds it more difficult to come to terms with his history and to speak of it.

The strongest aspect of Cicada is the convincing relationship between Ben and Sam with Fifer and Brown achieving a great rapport in these roles (there may have been some improvisation in their dialogue and in any case Brown is acknowledged as contributing to the screenplay). However, the film’s narrative sense as it brings the various elements together is often scrappy. That applies, for example, to the opening scenes which already hint at a significant event in Ben’s childhood even as they portray his one-night stands in the days before he met Sam. The ending again evidences the problem of fitting in so much since, despite this being in essence a love story, the final scene veers away from Sam to focus on Ben's need to come to terms with what happened to him years ago. In contrast to another recent gay film, Minyan, there's less distance, less control and judgment in the storytelling here. Admittedly, for some audiences and especially for those of the same age as the protagonists, its immediacy may make Cicada more involving. Yet it can also make the film feel all over the place when compared to the considered structuring of Minyan. Nevertheless, even if Cicada is something of a mixed bag, the two lead performances make the central relationship very engaging and Potts is excellent in his supporting role.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Matthew Fifer, Sheldon D. Brown, Sandra Bauleo, Cobie Smulders, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, Scott Adsit, Michael Potts, David Burtka, Jo Firestone, Jason ‘Freckle’ Greene, Bowen Yang.

Dir Matthew Fifer and Kieran Mulcare, Pro Ramfis Myrthil and Jeremy Truong, Screenplay Matthew Fifer with Sheldon D. Brown, Ph Eric Schleicher, Pro Des Chris Weihart, Ed Kyle Sims and Matthew Fifer, Music Gil Talmi.  

Rubbertape/Beast of the East Productions-Peccadillo Pictures.
97 mins. USA. 2020. US Rel: 29 October 2021. UK Rel: 21 January 2022. Cert. 15.