Working title

Outing Riley is a 2004 comedy about 30-something Bobby Riley, the youngest of four Irish Catholic brothers from Chicago, coming out to his family after their father’s death. If a death in the family seems like an inappropriate starting point for a comedy, you’ve clearly never attended an Irish funeral. And I think a lot of gay people can relate to waiting for someone to die before coming out.

The gist of the story is that Bobby is being pressured to come out to his family by his only sister and by his boyfriend, but fears the reactions of his brothers, who all have the emotional maturity of 12-year-old boys. Eventually he comes out with the aid of a slide show, and predictably, it doesn’t go well. The brothers, particularly the oldest, a priest, are outrageous assholes about it. Even for a movie made 20 years ago, the response feels dated. Of course, they eventually come around, even the priest, and everyone lives happily ever after.

The story’s a bit weak, the jokes predictable. But the acting is mostly good and aside from a few instances of breaking the fourth wall, the directing is solid. There are a few funny scenes. It mostly just felt like the script needed a few more revisions.

The cast includes post-Firefly/pre-Castle Nathan Fillion as one of the brothers, and Michael McDonald, the MadTV actor, not the Doobie Brother, as the boyfriend. The other brothers and the sister are played by actors who probably look familiar but you can’t think of what you’ve seen them in.

The weakest link in the cast is writer/director Pete Jones as Bobby. Jones previously won the first season of Ben Affleck’s and Matt Damon’s independent film competition, Project Greenlight, with his film Stolen Summer. Outing Riley is Jones’ only other directing credit. Both films received mostly negative critical reviews and somewhat favorable viewer response.

There’s not much information available on Jones’ personal life, but it seems that he’s straight. I wonder what the motivation was for telling this story, which appears personal, but wasn’t.