What becomes of the broken hearted
By Daily Bruin Staff
Sept. 28, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 Photos from Sony Pictures Classics The romantic comedy
"Broken Hearts Club" focuses on Dennis’ (Timothy
Olyphant) search for self-awareness and his interactions
with his friends.
By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Whether or not you’ve spent the better days of your life
folding jeans at Structure or listening to Karen Carpenter,
you’ve probably experienced a broken heart or two. And
whether they came to your rescue with the movie
“Beaches” or a pint of Hagen Daaz, your friends have
always been there to pick up the pieces.
Writer/director Greg Berlanti’s feature debut, “The
Broken Hearts Club ““ a romantic comedy,” focuses on a
group of gay men living in Los Angeles and how crucial their
friendships are to one another as they strive to become independent
and find a sense of personal identity.
“Friends are just like family,” Berlanti said at a
recent interview.
The film is centered around Dennis (Timothy Olyphant), a
photographer who reflects on his life when he turns 28. In his
search for self-awareness, he becomes more conscious of the support
he receives from his friends, as well as the challenges they
pose.
Berlanti uses universal themes of romance and comedy to present
a group of friends that do not differ too much from a group of
straight men.
“There’s no film like this that deals with these
kinds of friends ““ friends who happen to be gay,”
Berlanti said.
 Dean Cain plays Cole in “Broken
Hearts Club,” which opens today. Homosexuality may seem like
an unlikely perspective for a romantic comedy, but Berlanti hoped
to fill that void in gay cinema by making a movie about everyday
life.
“I hadn’t seen a film that had been about gay men
that seemed regular and fun,” Berlanti said.
While told from a gay perspective, the movie explores familiar
themes of guilt, jealousy and love, and according to Berlanti,
could just as easily be a heterosexual movie.
“The tendency is to look more for a statement because it
is about a minority, but I never saw it as such,” he said.
“It was just my own experiences and they seemed so regular
and average to me.”
The film evades stock gay characters and stereotypes in favor of
multifaceted personalities.
“A lot of people use the word stereotypes because
it’s been thrown around so much because there really have
been stereotype sort of characters,” Berlanti said.
“Now I think we’re moving more toward personalities,
and that’s what real characters are to me.”
For Olyphant, playing Dennis offered him a rare experience as
far as being the lead character.
“I tend to think that lead characters are the most boring
people in the movie,” Olyphant said. “This is not the
case here. (Dennis) had a great deal of range and fun.”
While other characters seemed to have their quirky hook, Dennis
was just hoping to transition smoothly into his 30s. He is not as
flamboyant as Taylor (Billy Porter) or as gorgeous as Cole (Dean
Cain).
 Sony Pictures Classics (Left to right) Matt
McGrath, Ben Weber, and Zach Braff star in "Broken Hearts
Club – a romantic comedy."
“Everybody else had their little niche,” Olyphant
said. “And I felt that Dennis had an opportunity to go
everywhere in-between.”
One of Dennis’s romantic interests is the group’s
“Newbie,” Kevin (Andrew Keegan). As a recently
“out” gay man, Kevin is especially sweet, inexperienced
and destined for heartbreak.
“He’s innocent, very naïve to this whole world
that he’s coming into,” Keegan said.
For Keegan, playing the young Kevin offered him a new
experience.
Keegan admits that he was too busy to read the script close
enough to realize how intimate he would get with co-star Dean
Cain.
“So I read it again,” Keegan said. “And of
course, there were kissing scenes.”
After all, what would a romance be without a few intimate love
scenes?
“The kiss was real simple,” Keegan said. “It
wasn’t too bad at all.”
The challenges of casting heterosexual actors as gay characters
was not a problem.
“(Berlanti) knew how to work with actors,” Keegan
said. “It was fun because we were all in on the same
experience. He was the leader, and we were all going in on this
together.”
According to Keegan, any hesitation reserved for playing a gay
character was dismissed by Berlanti’s openness while
filming.
“He was great,” Keegan said. “He was the kind
of director who really took the time to talk everything out, to
make sure that you were very comfortable with whatever you were
doing.”
According to Berlanti, the focus of the film isn’t sexual
preference. Beyond the concerns of gay culture is an ordinary story
about friendship.
“Everyone has a certain amount of liberation and warmth
from watching the film,” Berlanti said. “I’ve
been resistant in every step of the way of just pigeonholing myself
(as a gay writer) and yet the opportunities come up and they just
feel like the right thing to do.”
Far from appealing strictly to gay audiences, Berlanti’s
work includes the TV show “Dawson’s Creek” and
the upcoming film “Her Leading Man.”
“When I wrote the story (for “Broken Hearts”),
I hadn’t sold a script in my life,” he said. “I
wasn’t really writing it for any other reason than to try to
write something that was true and real to me.”
FILM: “The Broken Hearts Club ““ a romantic
comedy” opens today in theaters nationwide.
