Funny Boy: a sweepingly intimate romantic epic

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

29 Nov 2019

"Don't mess with the grand diva!"

Funny Boy balances a sweeping epic of political upheaval with an intimate love story. That the love story is a gay one, creates a parallel that adds immeasurably to the total effect. The oppression of gays and the conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese which becomes a civil war, are presented simultaneously but without explicit comparison, just a deep intertwining. Add in a Romeo and Juliet-esque subplot and oblique commentary on colonialism, and Funny Boy becomes a potent melodramatic brew. Gone with the Wind meets Brokeback Mountain set in Sri Lanka.

Set in the '70s and '80s, the love story/gay coming of age story, benefits from the time period and locale. More is at stake when gay is illegal. The family knows how to crush a woman who wants to love across cultural taboos, but seems conflicted about how to handle "funny boy" Arjie. Different family members either punish or ignore or actively encourage. One's heart aches as the free-spirited aunt tries to instill gay pride into a boy too frightened to accept himself let alone assert himself. Yet the passages where the family debate Arjie's fate are hilarious as they roil through stereotypes before settling on "he's creative." The aunt gives Arjie a make-up tutorial but warns him "I am only painting your toes. That way you wear socks over a joyful secret."

For a film firmly set in Sri Lankan culture, Funny Boy subtly grounds itself in North American cultural touchstones with Dickens, Wilde, Vidal and even Rogers and Hammerstein being supplanted by Leonard Cohen and then Boy George and The Eurythmics. The boys flirt surreptitiously but obviously and when they finally dance together, inhibitions (and shirts) gone, it is to The Police's "I'll Be Watching You." The aunt talks glowingly of her days as a student in Toronto, of partying at a gay bar. The family's resort has a band that performs a version of "What a Feeling" from Flashdance. While the battle for Sri Lankan cultural dominance is about to rage, the country has already been colonized. But that colonization will also give Arjie freedom and Toronto is the promised land.

The film is always aware of those ambiguities. The plight of the Tamils never denies their privilege and seeming arrogance. The almost excessively handsome Shivantha Wijesinha plays a nephew who comes to work at the family's resort and he becomes the target of prejudice before eventually joining the Tiger Tamil rebels. Understanding the politics is not important, what matters is how people become divided against other people; how the casual prejudice - both against gays and between the Tamils and the Sulinhese - hardens into violence. Here too there is ambiguity with hints of tension in the parent's marriage, with the mother having an unrequited sympathy (lust?) for the nephew, the married-off aunt and both sides of the conflict. 

It is a shame that the pandemic is preventing Funny Boy from getting the wide theatrical release befitting Canada's official Academy Award entry. The cinematography is not only stunning - both Sri Lanka and the faces are extraordinarily scenic - but the shots are cleverly composed and richly textured. From the wide open freedom of children playing on the beach to the constant closing of doors and fences against secrets, each moment is framed in beauty. Even the violence and the refugee camp montages are artfully composed. The red of a feather boa and scarf is vividly echoed in blood. Mehta also cribs freely from Douglas Sirk, with the metaphor of being imprisoned or spied upon repeating in shots through lattices or banisters or staircases that take forever to climb. The visuals are a voluptuously sensual experience.  

A big screen and a communal crowd would also emphasize what a crowd pleaser Funny Boy is. An old fashioned romantic epic with the crucial updates of LGBTQ and POC. Popcorn with the politics. It is impossible not to be swept up in the family's stories, and equally impossible not to google Sri Lankan history afterwards. There has been, a Mehta specialty, controversy about Funny Boy and its casting. As someone who is a fan of colour-blind casting and not adverse to gay-for-pay, I'm not qualified or knowledgeable enough to weigh in beyond a belief that Funny Boy was at least made with good intentions. Intentions to expose prejudices as destructive through entertainment.