In 1994, Tom Hanks won his first Oscar for playing a gay lawyer in Philadelphia, which was something of a landmark in American cinema because the character was presented in a sympathetic and positive light. When accepting his Oscar, Hanks thanked his high school drama teacher, Rawley Farnsworth, after previously asking permission to name him in connection with the film. That speech planted an idea in the brain of producer Scott Rudin, who mentioned it to the writer Paul Rudnick—what if Hanks hadn’t checked with his former teacher beforehand, and hilarity ensued?
Such is the setup for the Frank Oz’s 1997 comedy In & Out, with a screenplay by Rudnick: Howard Brackett, a popular high school English teacher in the picture-perfect town of Greenleaf, Indiana, will soon be married to a fellow teacher, Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack). All seems to be going well until Oscar night, when former Greenleaf student Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon) dedicates his Best Actor trophy to Howard and explicitly outs him to the world (at about the 16-minute mark, so it doesn’t count as a spoiler). No one is more surprised than Howard, who’s in the closet even to himself, and the rest of the film involves the efforts of Howard, his family, and the town to deal with this new information.
In & Out is a comedy so there’s more revising of prejudices than retaliation against the feared other, and also intimations of at least one new romance to let the story end on a properly Shakespearian note. The interest lies in how Rudnick’s screenplay gets you there, and if he relies a little too much on wishful thinking and shoehorns in a reference to a previous Oscar winner, it’s all done with such good-natured wit and humor that I’m inclined to give the film’s climatic scene a good-natured pass. The great strength of In & Out is in individual moments more than the grand narrative arc, and if some of the attitudes on display are outdated today, that’s a hazard for any movie not written today (including Philadelphia).
Kline fully commits to the role of Howard, in the process appearing in one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie (it involves his efforts to use a self-help tape to appear to be more masculine), as does Tom Selleck as an out television reporter. Cusack, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Howard’s long-suffering fiancé, has the single best line of the show and throws in a good dose of satire about the pressure on women to be skinny, no matter their natural body type.
Bob Newhart is convincing as the hypocritical principal of Greenleaf High, Debbie Reynolds is a scene-stealer as Howard’s mother, and Joseph Maher has a hilarious turn as a priest taking Howard’s confession. Other supporting players include Wilford Brinley, Gregory Jbara, Lauren Ambrose (in her second screen role), supermodel Shalom Harlow, and June Squibb, while the likes of Glenn Close, Jay Leno, and Whoopie Goldberg appear as themselves. Rob Hahn’s cinematography convincingly sells Greenleaf (actually Pompton Lakes, NJ) as the most perfect little town in America, but it’s Rudnick’s screenplay that carries the day. Part of the fun of owning the disc is that once you know how the story comes out, you can watch again and notice all the hints that are planted along the way. | Sarah Boslaugh
In & Out is distributed by Kino Lorber as a two-disc set: one Blu-ray and one 4K Ultra HD. Extras include a commentary track by screenwriter Paul Rudnick and film historian Lee Gambin, video interviews with director Frank Oz (18 min.) and composer Marc Shaiman (18 min.), vintage interview clips with cast members Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, Tom Selleck, Debbie Reynolds, plus Oz and Rudnick (17 min.), plus some behind the scenes footage (5 min.) and the theatrical trailer for this and seven other movies.
