Based on Ken Hanes’ Off-Broadway play, Fixing Frank revolves around the interactions of just three characters, three men. Young, freelance journalist Frank Johnston (portrayed by Andrew Elvis Miller) is in a long-term relationship with Jonathan Baldwin (Paul Provenza), an older psychologist. Jonathan works with former clients of psychologist Arthur Apsey (Dan Butler), who claims that he can "cure" gay men of their same-sex desires. Frank and Jonathan decide to “bust” Apsey by having Frank pose as a gay man seeking to be cured of his sexual orientation and engage the services of Apsey. The film’s story is about Frank becoming a pawn in a battle between the two psychologists. Frank comes to doubt many things he has believed, as Apsey provokes him to genuinely question the workings of his relationship with Jonathan, in which he has taken on an unquestioning, submissive role.
The title of the movie alludes to several levels of meaning. First, there is the idea that the two psychologists want to „fix“ young Frank, to make him into who and how each thinks he should be. At another level, there is the exploration of gayness as an illness to be cured or fixed. Is homosexuality a disorder, or is it a healthy and natural manifestation in the spectrum of human desire? Finally, the movie is about frankness and honesty that have been broken. The characters explore what it is to be honest, what is truth. Everyone has unspoken agendas that are kept secret but guide behavior and betray trust.
Both doctors are motivated by gay-related hurts in their past. For Apsey, the pain of witnessing his gay brother buckling under weight of homophobia led him decide to cure gayness, so that others dealing with homosexual desire would not have to experience his brother‘s pain. Jonathan’s own experience led him to the belief that being gay is fine and normal, he wanting to help gays avoid the pain of thinking it is something bad or wrong. Both men sincerely want to help men struggling with the question of same-sex attraction, but their answers are different.
While the film fearlessly tackles questions of sexuality, presenting various sides withoutholding punches, it is about gayness only on one level. A more universal question it engages is how to decide who is „good“ and who is „bad“? None of the characters is a monster, each operates from his own emotional wounds. What they do makes sense, even if it is problematical. On the other hand, each is also a monster, because their deceptive and manipulative behavior causes hurt. The film does not allow the viewer to ride along in the easy trot of Good Guy / Bad Guy, Black Hats / White Hats. Each of the characters has traits of both goodness and badness, if we choose to employ such terms. Each character, like all humans, is a paradoxical being, wearing both the white and black hats at different moments.
The issue of curing gayness is very controversial. It lends itself to scapegoating and blaming. But useful insights about it come only from entertaining all sides of the question, not by taking on knee-jerk attitudes, either pro or con. Jonathan’s unthinking and inflexible stance regarding this question allows him to be blind to ethics and how he treats his gay partner. Apsey may, indeed, cause gay clients harm (the movie does not weight in one way or the other), however, as a therapist he does wind up giving Jonathan genuinely useful tools for discoverng himself. Apsey (the presumed Bad Guy) opens doors for Frank to live a more authentice life (regardless of sexuality), while Jonathan (the presumed Good Guy) winds up manipulatiing and restricting Frank.
This movie is a excellent waking life dream, skillfully presenting the viewer provocative questions to ponder and tussle with. As is often the case with dreams, the key is not a “right” answer, but to really look at ourselves, to see the aspects of Frank, Jonathan, and Apsey that operate inside ourselves, and to understand how they affect our behaviors.