Movie Review	Movie Reviews Archive

Surrender Dorothy
directed by Kevin DiNovis
with Kevin DeNovis, Peter Pryor, Jason Centeno
How to order

Surrender Dorothy's protagonist isn't well-endowed in the brain, heart, or courage departments. By film's end, he's also missing something between his legs.

Making movies is one thing. Getting them to a public is quite another. Without a minimum of lots of money to make prints, distribute, advertise, and promote, many independent films (even from well established companies) simply wither in the Hollywood-and-vine. Films produced by individuals or smaller companies have even less chance in the marketplace.

View our poll archive

Take, for instance, Surrender Dorothy, an unnerving, wicked little piece of movie-making that was made in 1998, receiving almost no attention. Even though it won first place in the New York Underground Film Festival as well as at Slamdance, Surrender Dorothy has not made the crossover it into theaters, but has now surfaced on video.

Written and directed by Kevin DiNovis-- who also stars-- Surrender Dorothy is a cunning cross between the gender-bending, junked-out Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and The Collector with a little of In the Realm of the Senses tossed in for good measure. It's not gay so much as queer, and not queer so much as just perverse, with a drive and energy rare in films mainstream or independent. It also has wit, intelligence, and vision enough to make the likes of mamby-pamby gay independents like Kiss Me Guido and Better Than Chocolate run screaming from the theater.

Set in the vaguely sinister (but ultimately boring) world of the Philadelphia drug scene, Surrender Dorothy is a study of two men who become entangled in an overpowering and ultimately destructively satisfying relationship. Trevor (Peter Pryor) is a bumbling, socially inept 27-year-old who makes a meager living as a busboy. Feeling powerless, he hates his job, fucks up a lot, and broods at home. Lahn (Kevin DiNovis-- who took the role after the original Vietnamese actor had to leave at the last minute) is a 25-year-old junkie, homeless, jerk-off, loser punk predisposed to dumbass conduct like stealing from Dennis (Jason Centeno), the local drug dealer and thinking that he can get away with it (and keep getting drugs). Trevor lets Lahn stay with him and even begins scoring dope for him. As Lahn becomes more insufferable and Trevor becomes more resentful of his place in the world (or lack of it), the dynamic between the men begins to change. Trevor wants Lahn to do more around the house, and Lahn, who is stoned most of the time, complies unevenly. Trevor becomes more a bully and Lahn more passive. Soon Trevor-- who asserts he is heterosexual but has no luck with women (or much else)-- wants Lahn to become a woman named Dorothy, which happens to be the name on the apron he brings from the restaurant in which he works. Before you know it, Trevor is pushing Lahn further and further into becoming Dorothy: dresses, makeup, sex, and then hormone pills to increase his "femininity." Lahn fights this at first but then, well, surrenders under the influence of drugs, fear, passivity, and hopelessness. By the end of the film, Trevor-- who has become quite a forceful example of masculinity-- decides that it's time to go even further with actions that give "going all the way" a new meaning.

Shot in black-and-white on 16 millimeter for almost no money, Surrender Dorothy looks great. It is atmospheric and creepy-- think of David Lynch's Eraserhead crossed with Mildred Pierce-- and is unrelenting in its march to the inevitable. For all of its alluring unpleasantness it is also tremendously funny and DiNovis knows how to pull off a funny joke as easily as he can make us wince. Part of why Surrender Dorothy works so well is that DiNovis is far more interested in power and gender than sexual orientation. If either of these characters were self-acknowledgedly gay, the film would take on a whole new, and not very useful, meaning. Yet he also never shies away from the more complicated questions-- Trevor does want to have sex with Lahn, so what does that make him? What does it make Lahn?

Reviews-- all glowing-- talk about the film as being about "power" and "cruelty," but hardly anyone talks about what is clearly being critiqued here: heterosexuality. DiNovis doesn't make a big deal about it, but this is the best look at the intersections among sex, gender, and violence in years. It's too bad that Lahn was not played by the originally scheduled Vietnamese actor; the casting would have made Surrender Dorothy even more daring and alarming. As it is now, Surrender Dorothy is terrific. It will creep you out as it makes you laugh out loud, and you won't ever be able to hear the Cowardly Lion say "Surrender Dorothy" again without cringing a little in your seat.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com