WATCH: This hidden gem ’90s gay rom-com—with a hunky young Tuc Watkins!—is finally coming back to theaters
frequently documented on this very site, the history of LGBTQ+ cinema is surprisingly robust—you just have to know where to look for it.Despite that, queer romantic-comedies have been few and far between.
Oh sure, we’ve seen some major examples in recent years (Fire Island, Bros), but you can count on two hands the number of gay rom-coms released prior to this past decade.One such hidden gem example is writer-director Brian Sloan’s 1997 indie, I Think I Do, a groundbreaking ensemble screwball comedy with a gay will-they-won’t-they relationship—a staple of the genre, straight or otherwise—at its core.Subscribe to our daily newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.It’s the story of a group of college friends reuniting for a wedding, bringing feelings old and new to the surface, including successful TV writer Bob (the late Alexis Arquette) who has to face his former roommate Brendan (Christian Maelen) five years after confessing his then-unrequited love.
However, Brendan may have discovered some things about himself in the years since…Now, it’s possible that you’ve heard of I Think I Do—especially because some of its out stars like Tuc Watkins and Guillermo Diaz have had their careers skyrocket since.
But the chances that you’ve actually seen it? Well, they’re fairly slim!After premiering at San Francisco’s historic Frameline Film Festival in ’97, then making a splash at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie received a limited theatrical run in the spring of ’98 courtesy of Strand Releasing, earning just under $350,000 at the box office.Tuc Watkins has been playing gay characters pretty consistently since the ’90s.
