The Object of My Affection (1998)

I find Paul Rudd meh but the idea of a gay woman playing a straight woman who is trying to turn a straight man playing a gay man into a straight man makes my head explode.

I've loved this movie for years. So poignant and heartbreaking. It deserved better than the rom-com marketing it received, and it's one of those movies that should be given another look.

This thread made me look the movie up. Started watching it, amazed at how little of it o actually remembered from when it was originally released. I remember morevthe Chelsea theater where I saw it.

Then I thought "why is everybody drunk in this movie?" And I realized they must have slowed the film down ever so slightly, probably so that Russian audiences could understand it (even with subtitles)?

It's hysterical - everybody is slurring throughout the whole movie.

I think I liked it, sort of, although I don't remember plot details. I remember around this era wondering why gay movies were always so subpar. And then I remember seeing "The Next Best Thing" a couple of years later and longing for the great gay cinema of the past.

Have always loved this movie. And you're right, Paul Rudd is adorable in it. Jennifer too, actually.

I know it meant well, but there was a little too much of [italic]this[/italic] for my taste . . .

The book is one of my favorites and I've read it multiple times. The film adaptation is quite disappointing, though. Jennifer Aniston is so wrong.

The film itself was good but Nigel Hawthone's performance was exceptional. His after dinner speech to Jennifer was remarkably poignant.

Tim Daly was impossibly hot in this and as big a dick as Dr Joley was he was far hotter than Paul Rudd. And Allison Janney is a hoot.

Didn't Winona lobby hard for this, having worked with Nicholas Hynter on The Crucible and wanted Keanu to appear opposite her?

What r7 said.

It's an absolute travesty of an adaptation. The book is one of the best gay novels of the '80s. The movie is a pile of Hollywood pablum with total miscasting of the two leads (though Rudd is cute). I was particularly annoyed with the insertion of the theater crap, which has nothing to do with what McCauley wrote. Hytner and Wasserstein were NOT a good fit for this project.

In what ways does the book differ from the film? How are the main characters different?

the character of Rodney, the old gentleman who loses his youngish boyfriend to the Paul Rudd character---- Nigel Hawthorne indeed did a splendid job in his portrayal. My biggest takeaway from the film was sadness about his character, even though there was an attempt to show that he became part of that group of people who were tied loosely together as a family as the film ended.

The will-they-have-het-sex angle got creepy.

I remember thinking when watching this: "Paul Rudd is exactly the kind of nice Jewish boy my parents would have loved me to bring home."

The film is a valentine to Aniston, and she just wipes Rudd off the screen in terms of charisma.

It is an ok film but Wendy Wasserstein (the screenwriter) dumped her own baggage onto the film.

In the book they are both just fearful of moving ahead and sort of live together and even plan on raising the baby more out of inertia and because they are afraid of relationships. They never even talk about it. At one point when she gets really big they just sort of silently go and buy a crib. The book really captured that early 90s slacker type people. Wasserstein always had these odd crushes on gay men (some speculate it was due to her own repressed lesbianism) and she turned the film into a story of a neurotic woman in love with a gay guy.

Bruce Altman is hot in this.

One of the worst gay films ever

R18 It's fag hag movie, which makes it gay adjacent at most.

Fuck Fag Hags!

R20 They wish!

All the criticisms written here i agree with 100%.

For a while the only gay male characters you would see on film (and on TV) were paired with straight female "best friends" as the primary relationship in both of their lives. This film, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, NEXT BEST THING, WILL & GRACE, etc. The mindset was clearly "two gay men in a relationship is icky, so we have to have the gay male and straight female be a kind of faux-hereto couple."

To be fair, OBJECT does give Rudd's character a BF, but that character is largely sidelined to keep the focus on Aniston's and Rudd's characters' relationship, even at the end.

WILL & GRACE took this to an extreme, which is why I never warmed to the show.

"WILL & GRACE took this to an extreme.."

Actually a British mini-series called BOB AND ROSE took it to an extreme by having a gay man pretty much turn straight with a woman. And it was made by openly gay writer-director Russell Davies, who seems more interested in pushing buttons than anything else.

Paul Rudd was so incredibly sexy in this.

I loved the book, and think Rudd is fine. But Aniston is particularly terrible in the film.

Saw it as a young kid and found it really depressing in some way. I haven't seen it since, but I remembered feeling like being gay was going to be more of a curse.

This was way too Fag Hag wet dream. Also, it missed the opportunity to be a quintessential 90s NYC film as it wastes too much time at the carnival etc. when it should of utilized more NY location shots.

Also, I’ve hated that ugly little girl who screeches “YOU ARE?!?” after Rudd says he’s gay since seeing the trailer in the 90s.

Loved the book but the movie was a dud.

I read the book years after the film came out, and it was a completely different story!

Agree about Tim Daley being soooo hot and dreamy, but can understand why the two younguns hooked up. Nigel Hawthorne's performance was Oscar worthy, the definition of great supporting role.

[quote]"WILL & GRACE took this to an extreme.." Actually a British mini-series called BOB AND ROSE took it to an extreme by having a gay man pretty much turn straight with a woman. And it was made by openly gay writer-director Russell Davies, who seems more interested in pushing buttons than anything else.

r24, to be fair, Davies based it on a real life friend of his. My big complaint about these 'turning' shows/movies is when they still want to call the character gay, rather than bisexual. I saw a French film (forgot the name) with the same premise, and they too insisted on this nonsense that the guy was gay but he really wanted to fuck this one woman. If your dick gets hard for women (or one woman) then you are bisexual, stop trying to erase what gay means.

I was meh on the book (I liked an earlier book by the same author better) but agree this was a mess.

And while Will and Grace had its charms, we had films and TV shows for over a decade that still showed gay men and straight women as a "couple."

I love Wendy W but this was perhaps not a great fit for her, for sure.

There was a movie with Perry King and Meg Foster that had a similar premise about a gay man and lesbian woman hooking up and deciding to raise their baby together. I think there was some controversy involved. Amazing how all this controversy would go away if they'd just labeled the characters are bisexual instead.

R23, although you are correct and the movie was far from groundbreaking, that was a time when at least movies and tv series with out gay characters were being made for general audiences. And in this one as a main character . Growing up in the 80s I would have wellComed these movies, where gay people were st least starting to be acknowledged in main stream commercial fare.

[quote]There was a movie with Perry King and Meg Foster that had a similar premise about a gay man and lesbian woman hooking up and deciding to raise their baby together. I think there was some controversy involved. Amazing how all this controversy would go away if they'd just labeled the characters are bisexual instead.

r33, totally agree with you. I have actually encountered this in real life with "gay" men indicating that they are actually also sexually attracted to women, they get very angry when you point out this is bisexuality and keep on insisting they are gay. It's like they are courting controversy, no one would give a shit about you liking women if you just said you were bisexual.

R34, I get what you're saying, but on a fundamental level these films are just pushing the idea that the only genuine relationships are between men and women, even if you're gay. It plays to straights' prejudicial idea that gay relationships are primarily about sex and don't really last (as if straights should talk).

While the movie of OBJECT does differ a lot from the book, I generally find Stephen McCauley's novels keep hammering on the same gay man/straight woman theme, where the gay male character rarely (if ever) develops a relationship with another man for long. The deeper realtionships are always between the gay man and the lead female character. After reading his last tome, MY EX-LIFE, I decided I didn't need to read any more and McCauley is largely a one-trick pony.

BOB AND ROSE was indeed based on the experience of a friend of Russell Davies, but after the show aired, I saw a story in the British press that all these single women were descending upon gay clubs in Manchester (where the show is set) to look for a "Bob" to "turn." To me that just reeks of playing into the stereotype of gay men who just need "the right girl" to turn them right.

R36 My Ex-Life was loosely suggested by my husband’s relationship with his late wife. So there.

It was rather refreshing at the time to have a gay themed movie where half the characters weren't dying of AIDS.

R32, how could you have liked one of McCauley’s earlier books better? The Object of My Affection was his debut.

Watched this again recently after not having seen it since its original release. I think being older gave me a different perspective this time around. It’s not a great movie but I didn’t hate it as much as when I saw it in my 20s. Paul Rudd was gorgeous.

I know this scene is schmaltzy, but it always gets me. I think we have all fallen for someone we know we can never have.

I remember when this was supposed to star Winona and Keanu.

I love this movie. It was one of a handful of movies I’d watch on Sunday nights in high school to decompress before I had to go back. So well done, this was the performance Jennifer Aniston could’ve gotten awards buzz for, but I guess it wasn’t showy enough.

Allison Janney is also terrific. She has a line at the beginning about how her literary agent husband represented RuPaul. For years it was hilariously dated. It’s funny that it’s relevant again. There’s a similar reference on My So Called Life about Ru.

Paul Rudd was the object of my erection.

Jennifer Aniston was the cause of my meat injection, now she’s the object of my Botox injection.

Stunning... brave... a tour de force.

Loved the book. It's of my generation. The film will be a well loved rom com for the ages.

Chin up, young person!

r41

I'm not sure Paul Rudd has ever looked more cute than that.

I liked the little Asian girl who was smarter than all her classmates and whom Allison Janney's character couldn't stand.

R37, your husband wound up in a long term relationship with you.

The main character in McCauley's book winds up with no male partner or even the promise of one. Just a Will & Grace-style relationship with his ex.

Big difference. So there.