Film Event: "Breakfast with Scot"

I don’t know where to start with “Breakfast with Scot”. It’s Canadian, and Scot has one t (why it’s abbreviated I’ll never know). The film itself was released in Canada in 2007, but has only recently made its way around American art house theaters this fall. It played for a limited time (only about a week) at the Lagoon over in Uptown.

The plot of “Breakfast” is pretty simple. There’s an (gay) ex-hockey player (Eric, played by Tom Cavanagh) who lives with his partner (Sam, played by Ben Shenkman) in a swanky house in a not so swanky neighborhood (is Toronto part of the rust belt now?). His partner unexpectedly becomes the legal guardian of his brother’s son when his sister-in-law dies of a drug overdose. Since the brother is in Brazil, the gay couple is stuck with a kid on their hands (the aforementioned Scot). Awkwardness, love, and searches for a true self ensue.

At the core of the film is the idea that everyone has a true self, and to what degree that true self is oppressed (maybe even erased?) is decided by external forces, i.e. society. I’m always a little wary of true self narratives, as its hard to believe that everyone is born with some inherent essence that makes them exactly who they are. I lean more towards the experience-as-self model of things. But films can be unrealistic, and characters appear in them implying that they have psychologies that have been developed through life experiences similar to mine (I won’t say ours). So uh… pick and chose, yeah?

In any case, Eric (the hockey player) is confronted with his own semi-out-ness by his partner’s brother’s kid, who turns out to be furnished with very pink clothes when he arrives at the couple’s house. In the end, a new kind of family love is born out of all of this and Eric seems infinitely more comfortable with himself and entirely accepting of his newly acquired son.

Most notable about the film’s production is that the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs allowed their names, logos, and spaces to be used in the making of the film. This is the first time that a major league sports franchise has ever endorse a queer-themed film.

Alright Canada. Alllright.