Fire Island Film Review: Hulu Provides Lots of Laughs and Heart Just in Time For Pride Month
Fire Island, the infamous location for gay men in NYC, provides lots of drama, romance, and comedy.
The movie, written by star Joel Kim Booster and directed by Andrew Ahn (who directed an episode of MacGyver), chronicles Noah (Booster) and his friends’ yearly trip to the pines.
Antics ensue, along with some truly heartfelt moments.
Noah and his friends find themselves getting into the usual Fire Island shenanigans, but the movie takes unexpected emotional turns.
The movie also discusses many issues within the LGBTQ+ community (specifically, the gay male community).
Fire Island stars Joel Kim Booster (Big Mouth, Search Party), Bowen Yang (SNL), Margaret Cho (Drop Dead Diva, 30 Rock), Conrad Ricorma (How to Get Away With Murder), James Scully (You), Matt Rogers (I Love That For You), Tomas Matos, Torian Miller, Nick Adams, and Zane Phillips (Legacies).
Noah (Booster) and Howie (Yang) have been friends for a while, and Noah’s one goal on this trip: get Howie laid.
The movie focuses on the friendship between the entire group, with Erin (Cho) as their pseudo-mother.
The movie then shifts from the group having fun to being directly discriminated against for not being conventionally attractive, less-wealth, and/or of a different race.
Many men in the gay community (especially in hyper-sexualized places like Fire Island) treat other gay men differently.
The movie highlights this well, and we think it is something incredibly necessary because it’s not something talked about often.
The relationships between the core friend group (Noah, Howie, Erin (Cho), Luke (Rogers), Keegan (Matos), and Max (Miller)) are authentic and beautiful.
They all care for each other and truly seem like a perfect friend group.
The performances are incredible, especially from Cho and Yang (but everyone seriously dazzles).
Margaret Cho really stands out as one of the best (she’s always impressed us), and her relationships with the entire group, specifically Noah, prove to be wonderful.
Noah considered her to be a surrogate mother, and while the others may also think that, to some extent, Noah and Erin’s relationship ran deep.
The movie often utilized something we dread in any form of visual media: narration.
The quality of many movies has fallen due to the unnecessary and overuse of narration.
With Fire Island, the narration is one of the first things that we hear, but luckily the narration didn’t take away from the quality too much.
The amount of narration we did get (from Booster’s character) did provide some interesting context, but it took away from what we were witnessing on screen.
The behind-the-scenes stuff added to the quality of the film, with the imagery, costumes, and direction proving to be essential.
The costumes showed off the lifestyle of being at Fire Island, while also keeping things (relatively) modest.
There were, of course, many non-modest outfits and scenes (after all, Fire Island isn’t known for being PG), but they balanced it well and managed to not oversexualize the entire film.
The scenes that used sex and sexuality were used to advance the plot in some way.
Overall, the film managed to touch upon many different subjects without becoming too risque, while also incorporating the elements of gay nightlife culture.
Opinions may vary on this film, but the comedy is certainly there; we found ourselves laughing out loud many times.
The romance may be a bit cheesy, but cheesy romance stories are something that the LGBTQ+ community lacks in popular culture (especially movies).
It is a welcome change to the typical coming-out gay drama we’ve seen repeatedly, and while not something as emotional, Fire Island still packs an emotional punch with its themes.
One of the biggest themes has to do with found family and how it affected the different lead characters individually and as a group.
The emotions behind each of the individual journies made for a very well-rounded film.
Even though the comedy and romantic/sexual aspects are a major part of Fire Island, the film manages to present itself as something beautiful and timely.
We really loved watching this film in theaters, and if you could see it in theaters, we recommend it (if not, catch it on Hulu).
Check out the trailer for the film below!
So Fanatics, what do you think?
Are you going to check out Fire Island?
Let us know in the comments! Fire Island Premiered on Hulu Friday, June 3rd.
Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
