Finding North Details

Essentially a lower-octane, gender-bending version of Forces of Nature, Tanya Wexler's feature debut takes an off-the-beaten-track approach to the road movie. Mixing gentle character comedy with life-affirming revelation, it features John Benjamin Hickey as a man with a mission — a Texan quest set by his dead lover — who is joined by Wendy Makkena as a just-sacked, thirtysomething Brooklynite desperate to escape the clutches of her shrewish Jewish mother. Played to the pleasingly melancholic strains of a country soundtrack, the film tackles the Aids issue with sensitivity rather than insistence, and avoids unnecessary sentimentality. But the central relationship feels forced, with the sparky Makkena getting too little response from Hickey's self-pitying stuffed shirt.

For all its bold, comic treatment of gay issues, simple staging and quirky yet predictable ending, this tale of... read more on Time Out