There’s something about road trips that is inherently romantic — the wide open road ahead, embarking on a journey with only the person in your passenger seat for company. It’s a perfect setting for a romantic comedy, trapping two strangers in a confined space where they have no choice but to connect with each other (and hopefully fall in love along the way).
Stelios Kammitsis’s 2021 film The Man with the Answers is a visually stunning and resonant road trip rom-com, following the budding romance between the secretive and tight-lipped Victoras (Vasilis Magouliotis) and the carefree and eccentric Mathias (Anton Weil). The two men meet on a boat from Greece to Italy, and then take a scenic, winding drive all the way to Germany, where Victoras’s mother lives. The film’s 80-minute runtime makes it a perfect afternoon watch, with an engaging multilingual script and compelling character dynamics. But what I appreciate most about it is that it offers a queer love story unburdened by the usual shadow of internalized or societal homophobia that so often defines gay media.
Many gay romances feature one or both of the characters overcoming internalized shame and homophobia, being closeted and/or outed, or suffering as a victim of violence or unaccepting family. The Man with the Answers, on the other hand, is a gay film where sexuality isn’t the central conflict. This isn’t to say that I take issue with gay cinema that centers on the challenges and prejudices around queer romance, but I’d be hard pressed to name a recent queer movie I’ve seen where the queerness was fully a non-issue. Victoras and Mathias have their share of interpersonal drama and moments of angst, but not once does that center on their sexualities. In fact, their sexualities are not explicitly talked about at all.
Just as in most heterosexual rom-coms, this film centers on the building of the couple’s relationship. Victoras must open up and not stay bogged down by his past failures; Mathias learns when to push Victoras’s limits and when to be serious; both men have to learn to trust each other. It was refreshing to spend an hour and a half with these characters and not have to be reminded of the harsh and often unforgiving realities of homophobia and violence.
The buildup to Victoras and Mathias’s romance is a slow burn, but well-telegraphed if you know that you should be looking for it. Even if you didn’t know the film was going to be a queer love story going into it, the relationship falls right in line with the typical rom-com dynamic: the Type A character (Victoras) learns to let their guard down around the handsome, carefree love interest (Mathias). Magouliotis and Weil give intimate and nuanced performances, drawing the viewer into the two men’s interior dramas as they feel each other out, peeling back layers bit by bit.
The first moment we see Victoras let his guard down is when Mathias convinces him to stop the car so they can go swimming in a lake. After they get out of the water, stripped down to their underwear, they air-dry on the dock, passing a cigarette back and forth. Though there is nothing explicitly sexual about their near-nakedness or the moment, it is charged nonetheless. There is an intimacy in their shared cigarette, the companionship of the quiet moment they share together. It is perhaps the first time in the film that Victoras seems relaxed. As the film goes on, we see him grow even more at ease, letting go of control piece by piece as he lets Mathias drive, lets him pick detours, and share tiny pieces of his past.
The pivotal turning point in their relationship takes place in a hotel bed, both men sleeping in just their underwear, curled away from each other. Mathias rolls over in his sleep, and his bare foot presses against Victoras’s. Victoras pulls away instinctively, and in the long moment of quiet, you can feel the tension build and then break, as Victoras gently presses his foot back against Mathias, accepting his touch and peeling back that final layer of vulnerability. A moment later, the two roll to face each other and share a passionate kiss. These moments of deliberate physical intimacy are sparse throughout the film, but each one is all the more effective because of it.
While there is the expected awkwardness and miscommunication following their shared night of intimacy, it is never implied that sexuality has anything to do with that awkwardness. This is simply the trajectory of most rom-com plots; there must be a moment of everything nearly falling apart before the characters finally get back on the same page. When queer films make the pivotal relationship drama center around their queerness, it can begin to seem as if that is the only drama that queer couples — at least those represented in media — are allowed to have. But Victoras and Mathias have other problems. Victoras is still carrying anger over his mother abandoning him, and his failures in his swimming career. Mathias has a problem with pushing Victoras’s boundaries a bit too far. Their sexualities, while not shied away from in the narrative, are not what we are here to see them work through.
All things considered, The Man with the Answers is not an especially original premise at its core. Movies centered around road trips are not new. But to have a queer film that takes on these tropes makes them feel brand new. My hope is that this signals more queer rom-coms to use this angle: one that allows the characters to exist unburdened by internalized homophobia, the shadow of potential hate crimes, or unaccepting families hanging over their heads.
I want to see all of the well-loved rom-com tropes we’ve seen a dozen times over from a straight perspective, this time with gay and lesbian leads. Rom-coms offer the viewer an escape into an ideal world, where the music swells at all the right moments and you can fall in love with a perfect stranger in just a few days. Queer audiences deserve more of these escapes as well, to see themselves reflected onscreen in a more perfect version of reality.
