FIRE ISLAND | Heads Up Clip | Searchlight Pictures
It doesnt take long for
*Fire Island*, Joel Kim Boosters instant-classic Jane Austen riff, to stake its claim in the romantic comedy canonor rather, defiantly outside of it. Less than a minute into the opening sequence, Booster refers to *Pride And Prejudice*, his source material, as hetero nonsense As this storys Lizzie Bennet stand-in,Brooklynite Noah continues to narrate: he shudders at the boyfriend energy of theman in his bed whose name clearly eludes him, then calls his chosen family, the group of friends on their annual Fire Island vacation, the F-word (the one reserved for gays). Dont cancel me he tells us, tongue firmly in cheek. Im reclaiming it
Suffice it to say this isnt your typical rom-combut then again, how could it be? With all due respect to
*But Im A Cheerleader* and rather less respect to *Love, Simon*,audiences havent seen themselves reflected much in a genre that, at least in its heyday, defined Hollywoods mainstream and reinforced heteronormative sociocultural standards. Booster and director Andrew Ahn use Austens tale of class tension, a romantic comedy urtext, to laugh in the face of such standards, and introduce some new ones.and straight viewers alike may experience *Fire Island* on Hulu with a mix of delight and disorientation; they havent worked the muscles of watching awill-they-wont-they story, let alone one populated by unabashedly out characters. [Jack Smart] *Stream it now*