In from the Side
Matt Carter takes one’s breath away with a first feature set in and around a gay rugby club.
Will Hearle
In reading the credits for In from the Side, two things stand out. The first is the extent of the contributions by its director, Matt Carter, here making his first truly full-length feature. That's because he is also the writer (along with Adam Silver), the photographer, the editor, the composer, a co-producer and even partly involved in the costume design. The second detail that stands out is the film’s length. In from the Side, a piece of popular cinema aimed first and foremost at gay audiences, tells the story of two London-based rugby players who fall in love, Mark Newton played by Emmerdale’s Alexander Lincoln and Warren Hunt played by Alexander King. Such material would usually yield a standard-length movie of, say, 100 minutes but In from the Side exceeds that by over half an hour. That feels risky.
So, does the gamble pay off? In many ways it does. So adept is Carter's filmmaking (he is very good at keeping up the momentum of the piece not infrequently using montage to that end) that the length of the film never in itself becomes a worry. It helps too that his lead actors, Lincoln in particular, are so very good and Carter's portrayal of the love affair is written with a sense of authenticity even if it never attains the depth of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011). The level here is much more that of a good popular television series.
For gay audiences it will be easy to identify with the central situation even if the sporting background, convincing as it appears to be, represents a world with which many of them are unfamiliar. Both Warren, who plays for the A team of the South London Stags, and the promising but less established Mark, who is in the B squad, already have partners when they meet. Mark is settled in with Richard (Alex Hammond) and the two men live in Richard’s lavish apartment. However, Richard’s business affairs often take him out of the country and in any case the men have agreed on an open relationship, one which allows for sex with other men. As for Warren, he is with John (Peter McPherson) but it is a less than ideal partnership and when he meets Mark the two men hit it off on a deeper level at once. However, knowing that John would object strongly even violently, Warren insists on keeping their affair secret. It's also the case that by continuing to see Warren as opposed to having a one-night stand with him Mark is breaking one of the rules he had agreed with Richard as a condition of their open relationship. This is a situation that could be viewed from various angles, but Carter's film positively invites viewers to sympathise with Mark and Warren and to root for them in the hope that they will break free and settle down together.
Had the film remained in that mould it might well have worked well, even perhaps establishing bearded men as the new gay look for both Mark and Warren have beards and come across attractively. But in the event Carter changes the tone for the last quarter of the film. This sets in after circumstances have allowed Mark and Warren to share a Christmas visit with Mark’s parents who are living in Aspen, an episode in which the writing and playing seem less sure-footed. What follows are events which, a bit contrivedly but not too improbably, lead to both Peter and Richard learning that they have been deceived. From this point on the film concerns itself with whether or not Mark and Warren should or should not make a life together given the betrayals in which they were involved. If this were to be effective, it would require Richard and Peter to be portrayed in greater detail than is the case here. This suggests that 134 minutes may actually be too short since a longer running time in the form of a TV serial would have enabled the subsidiary characters to be realised more fully including the most vaguely drawn of them all, Henry (Will Hearle), who is also a player and who dotes on Mark. Oddly he becomes more prominent in the finale which also offers some conventional sports footage whereas earlier Carter has been strikingly successful in filming rugby in such a way that it looks and feels markedly homoerotic.
In the circumstances In from the Side ends up being less successful than its first two-thirds had led one to expect. Nevertheless, it's still a film that will have strong appeal for gay audiences and, despite its faults, it can be counted something of a triumph for Matt Carter. Indeed, one is awestruck to learn from the end credits that this multi-tasker can also be heard singing in three soundtrack songs and that he is responsible for the touches of animation that are incorporated into those end credits!
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Alexander Lincoln, Alexander King, Pearse Egan, Peter McPherson, Alex Hammond, Will Hearle, Christopher Sherwood, Chris Garner, Tom Murphy, Nigel Fairs, Mary Lincoln, Carl Loughlin, Kane Surry.
Dir Matt Carter, Pro Andrew Faure, Matt Carter and Adam Silver, Screenplay Matt Carter and Adam Silver, Ph Matt Carter, Ed Matt Carter, Music Matt Carter, Costumes Ross Barr and Matt Carter.
Take A Seat Pictures-Verve Pictures.
134 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 16 September 2022. Cert. 15.