Bedrooms and Hallways

Bedrooms and Hallways is a 1998 comedy-drama film about homosexuality. It was written by Robert Farrar and directed by Rose Troche, starring Kevin McKidd, James Purefoy, Tom Hollander, Julie Graham, Simon Callow and Hugo Weaving. Plot Leo, an openly gay man celebrates his 30th birthday, and arrives home and is very unhappy to find a surprise-party organised by his roommates Darren and Angie in full swing. Leo has a complicated personal history with some of the guests and hides in his bedroom, feeling grumpy and old. This history is explained in an extended flashback. It turns out that his brother Adam had encouraged Leo to attend his weekly men's group run by New Age-type goofball Keith whose wife is Sybil. There, Leo meets hunky Irishman Brendan whom he develops a crush on, which he reluctantly reveals to the group. However Brendan is straight and lives with his ex-girlfriend Sally who is later revealed to be Leo's high school sweetheart. A series of 'Iron John' group exercises leads Brendan and Leo to develop a friendship. As they bond, it becomes clear that Brendan's curiosity towards Leo starts to grow in a sexual escalade. In the men's group, one of the other groupsmen become very jealous of Leo's "friendship" with Brendan and that he does not have that with Leo. Brendan fights with the lad over Leo. The friendship is soon to become more, as Brendan appears unexpectedly late one night at Leo's door and sleeps with him; after which they become something of a couple, to the consternation of one man in their men's group, though it encourages another, Terry, to explore his sexuality. Meanwhile, flamboyant Darren has met real estate agent Jeremy, who gets a kick out of having sex in houses for sale he has been given the keys to. However, he is not interested in "couply" things, despite Darren's attempts. Eventually this leads to their having sex with handcuffs and blindfolds in the bedroom of the house which Sally has on the market, during which she unexpectedly returns home. Jeremy abandons Darren, who dumps him. Leo gets close once more to Sally, and ends up kissing her. Feeling guilty, he leaves in a panic, and ends up telling Brendan what happened, who goes ballistic as he still has feelings for Sally. Leo finds himself in a quandary, and decides to confess to Sally that he is the one who is seeing Brendan (Sally had previously believed it was Leo's roommate Angie).