The plot summary of Almost Normal sounds like another campy throw away attempt at a comedy full of inside jokes for the queer crowd. But for it's genre (queer comedy) it's a really well constructed film that explores an amusing story idea and rarely tries for the broad and obvious laughs. Nor does it throw in gratuitous nudity and sex as a cheap audience appeal.* Almost Normal is a well shot, good looking film. The acting is unusually good for a queer comedy. The sets, costumes, and hair are convincingly late 70s without screaming it (the way That 70s Show did), and the hair/makeup person/s did a great job at making younger actors look convincingly 20 years older. The music has a Movie of the Week sound to it which I like to think was intentional.In general Almost Normal is a great choice if you're looking for a pleasant, amusing queer comedy that doesn't insult your intelligence.*I actually love gratuitous nudity and sex as much as the next guy but in queer films it often seems tacked on merely for the audience or because the director wanted a legit reason to see the actors naked.

This movie can't decide if its goal is to preach, amuse, sadden, or just plain annoy the viewer. Is this the gay "Peggy Sue Got Married", "Back to the Future", "The Wizard of Oz", or a confused amalgam of all 3, with some PG-13 "Queer as Folk" thrown in??Particularly annoying was the unused opportunity to have the role-reversed world be even an iota better than the current state of right wing homophobia extant in America today.Mediocre acting, poor editing, and an uneven script result in a sub-standard movie watching experience. Thank goodness for Fast Forward.

Premise? Brad, a 40 year old college professor, gets propelled back in time to his high school years (paging Peggy Sue). The time machine of choice is an automobile (paging Doc Brown). The twist here is that his past is now a world where same sex relations are the norm and being a 'breeder' is considered 'queer'. Unfortunately, ALMOST NORMAL suffers a bit from adhering to it's 'concept' - showing us a world every gay person has dreamt of, where being gay is the acceptable norm. Some of the character and plot energy is diverted to this noble experiment and thankfully, it eventually pays off. Although an indy in spirit, ALMOST NORMAL looks and sounds pretty slick and manages to be quite winning, despite some apparent flaws. The scenes where Brad and his boyfriend go on an 'ice cream' date and where the hunky boyf eventually proposes marriage are genuinely moving and refreshingly real. The convention of having Brad remain 'different' even in his new world is the film's toughest trick and I'm glad to say it works. The performances are capable and except for a few of the smaller roles, the acting is uniformly pretty good. The score and photography are above the norm for this type of endeavor, generally on a par with a Hollywood effort. The direction is a bit uneven, with a few scenes a bit too farcical and others veering toward the too sentimental. But for the most part ALMOST NORMAL is almost as clever and unique a film as Doc Brown could possibly confabulate.

I did like this movie. It had the benefit of never having been done before or since for that matter.In the primary story, a college professor, reaches his 40th birthday and is an unhappy single gay man. He goes home to help his family celebrate his parent's 45th wedding anniversary. During his visit he runs into old friends and old "not so" friends. Further reminded of his lonely life during this family gathering he gets into an accident and is somehow catapulted back into his teenage years.However all is not as it was. Now he is a world where men like men and girls like girls. His father is married to his otherworld neighbor husband and his mother is married to the otherworld wife. The star of the basketball team a guy he has always had a crush on meets and falls for him while his best friend, a girl shows up. For a brief shining moment he is "normal." However all things are not equal. In this world he discovers that he is not gay. He falls for his friend and they enter a tentative relationship that jeopardizes the love he had developed with his teen heartthrob.The movie was good but not as good as it could have been. From the technical side the movie's editing was not as good as it could have been and some of the actors had a habit of overplaying their roles. Still for what it was and is this movie is a ground breaker. It was a major shocker for me a gay man to see a high-school full of boys kissing each other and girls doing the same with their girl friends. For a moment I saw a world where I would have been "Almost Normal."