One effective emotional de-stressor that I’ve discovered recently is that whenever you made it to the end of a long day or week and you are asked something that you normally are opposed to, just say yes. Sometimes the negativity you might be anticipating would now feel less burdensome, sometimes that yes might be more momentous to the other party, or sometimes it might actually be an unexpected pleasure. Dicks: the Musical, the brainchild of theater/comedians Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, is that “yes” I have for the year. It’s not to say that I had been cornered into watching Dicks by any means; I am, in some tiered hierarchy of fan identity, a Hottie and wanted to see Megan tackle a no-nonsense musical before going Safdie. Somewhere in the logical cortex of my brain, I felt like Dicks wasn’t going to be my brand. And while I can probably rattle a list of great films this year that will make it into my faves list, I don’t know if a first-time watch has seeped into my brain folds quite as easily as Dicks.

Slimmed into slightly under ninety minutes, Dicks promises the whimsical ruse of The Parent Trap, in which Sharp and Jackson play the respective roles of Craig and Trevor, twins separated at birth who are now grown men (in the beginning, the film asks for a suspension of disbelief of Sharp and Jackson’s physical dissimilarities and that, in a historical heroic feat, they are gay men playing straight men). They excel as top salesmen of their companies, which merge under the leadership of Gloria Masters (Megan Thee Stallion). After a few competitive songs and dance, they find out that they are related by their shared denominators of women-venturing, capitalist empty-headedness, birthdays, and a heart necklace that says “Our two boys” when put together. Raised separately by each parent, Craig and Trevor decide to meet the other parent in hopes of reuniting under one nuclear family.

When you have a cute, rapscallion spirit like the young Lindsay Lohan coming to fix your marriage, it’s no wonder that it works. When you have gawky man-demons like Craig and Trevor, you might consider petitioning for an annulment and head towards the exit doorway. However, we find that the parents — no one else but Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally — are the only ones that could have birthed and nurtured those children. For safety reasons, it feels as though none of these people should really be within in a ten-foot radius of each other, never mind re-exist as a family. Instead of the tennis-white vacationland that The Parent Trap takes place in for family-friendly hijinks, Dicks reimagines NYC as a Dante Alighieri-minded fresco hellscape for the gays. To survive this, you say yes and meet it halfway.

I’m betting across the board that the film isn’t trying to achieve enlightenment, especially in this season of titan veterans going for the gold. But it fills a void for the risk of failure — to release something so asinine in the hopes that people will come in for outrage and laughter (Beau Is Afraid arguably meets that criteria if we were considering post-watch). In his campaign for Resembling a Fatherly Figure of the Year, Nathan Lane is Harris, a newly outed man who is inhibited from living his life as a silver-fox bachelor from the Sewer Boys (who will receive no explanation in this review except for this part, where Harris confirms to the audience that they are for the gay culture). Mullally, who plays Evelyn, is board-certified to play the most nonsensical character in history (I’m still not sure if I’m exaggerating). With one marble rolling around in her noggin, I’m not sure what truths that Evelyn spews out that are committed to character or if they are Mullally’s off-script darts to the wall. Unfortunately, they rarely collide with comical response, but when they do, I have no choice but to laugh.

Even through the waxing and waning of enjoyability, I found Dicks to be a memorable experience, where the quips feel naturally contagious (God find me the moment where I can say “We’re twins! We’re identical fucking twins!” in a conversation) and the plot progression was somewhat amusing. Remarkably, Sharp and Jackson have nice singing voices, which I felt like I enjoyed more than the attempts for the Lane/Mullally numbers to imprint a cult-like reaction on the audience. It’s bonkers, Bowen Yang is God, Megan Thee Stallion has a solo song — as the everlasting cultural mantra goes, Dicks wants to give the gays everything they want. Eventually, people will learn that gay culture is not monolithic, and chaotic trial and error is one hell of a lesson.

Dicks: The Musical
2023
dir. Larry Charles
86 min.

Now playing @ Somerville Theatre