Comedy

Straight Up

ComedyRomance

Todd and Rory are intellectual soul mates. He might be gay. She might not care. A romantic-comedy drama with a twist; a love story without the thrill of copulation.

Year

2020

Duration

1h 35m

IMDb

6.9

Trailer

Cast

James Sweeney

Director

James Sweeney

Todd

Katie Findlay

Rory

Dana Drori

Meg

James Scully

Ryder

JD

Joshua Diaz

Zane

Tracie Thoms

Dr. Larson

Betsy Brandt

Topanga

Randall Park

Wallace

Brendan Scannell

Jerry

Ken Kirby

Craig

Grace Song

Hilary

Hillary Anne Matthews

Nicole

Logan Huffman

Darien

OG

Omar Guazzelli

Guy

Alexis Beckley

Kayla

Lamar Richardson

Tracy

Jon E. Darby

Student Director

Ozioma Akagha

Katrina

James Sweeney

Writer

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Comments

10 comments

Mercy EkeMar 20, 2026

Any LoulouMay 29, 2023

source: Straight Up

Youssef AoutoulMay 23, 2023

An incredibly powerful story of soulmates who don't fit societies expectations of what a relationship should look like, and they could not care less. i think it's a really fun look into how relationships don't need to be inherently sexual in order to work, sometimes, you're soulmate is just your soulmate and how you choose to spend your time with them is magically and perfectly your own. this is a love story, but not the kind you grew up with, and that's what makes it perfect.

ChloéMay 23, 2023

I loved the writing in this movie. It's introspective and sharp, with back and forth repartee to totally engage you for its short 96 minute runtime. I have obsessive-compulsive thinking tendencies myself and I found the irreverent, self-referential dialogue and overall self-doubt both amusingly charming and relatable. The two main protagonists are given relatively equal screen time and sympathy and the audience finds themselves rooting for them as individuals and as a pair, even when their future is quite uncertain. The movie also poses tough and thoughtful questions about relationships that will keep you thinking about love and attraction and companionship long after the credits have rolled

Nana Ama KakrabaMay 23, 2023

Basically, most of the movie is just toothache boring and dragged-out scenes of people being uncomfortable with themselves. Meh. The actors are good, the story is good, but the film is boring. Sweeney, learn to be brief. I get it that it's your first movie, but you need to learn to shed the repetitions. One audition scene, one no-sex bed scene, one bananagram scene, one (short!) witty banter scene, not three or four of each! Then you'd have the time to add some secondary story to the plot to entertain people who could not care less about asexuals. All we learn about the blond girl is that she is cheating, and she is too simplistic to be interesting anyway. Same about the parents. Learn to have multiple - not just one or two - complicated characters, and develop all of them, don't keep them static. I'm disappointed, this looks like a student film, not a professional one. C+ for now. Get better, you have potential.

user1117757000624May 23, 2023

There's defínete something special about this film. You don't see this everyday. A normal story that gets into the complexity of regular life. From the way it was shot, and the heavy dialogues and mise en scéne.

Attraktion ColeMay 23, 2023

Well, for those of you looking for a comedy, SPOILER ALERT, this is NOT a comedy. This is a drama about a man about a man who doesn't know if he's gay or not, there was one scene that made me laugh in total. The ending was unexpected, also a bit confusing, as the credits rolled, I wondered who the third guy was, I think it was Ryder with a slightly shorter hair, yeah, probably. So, they find a way to work things out in the end, involved a third person, who doesn't have issues with sex and intimacy. That's it. The movie is reeeally different... I wouldn't watch it again.

⛓🖤مشاعر مبعثره🖤⛓May 23, 2023

Haddaway once said ''is this love'' in a song that i define as one of the best discotheque songs ever made if you want to feel the rythm of the night so just leave it all behind debarge concludes, well bla bla, which it actually is.its a tirade of metaphysical and philosopical or maybe episcopal genderistic verbal elaboration of dick and fanny or dick on dick or fanny on fanny or double fanny on dick and soforth. the mainset of caracters are ryvita dry on the edges, and as they try to break down their walls of innoscence and lack of selfconfidence, it turns out into a pretty witty qurky kind of to be or not to be... straight or whatever movie. its the new kind of romcom comedy that i usually stay a way from, cause youll have to like verbalistic warfare to enjoy this. apart from that its a well made production ,i liked the camerawork and style which are used extensively to visualize the distance between the culprits. the main actors are beautiful and good at talking, and feels for the humble ocd'er pretty familiar. going back in time the grumpy old man had a similar way of courting my grumpy old wife, though i must admit she more found me, i was far too dizzy being the hen in a class of 60 student chicks at the nursing academy.though it happened very silent with small paperwritten notes sent across the classroom,and when it really took of even i the muted grumpy old man got water on the mill so i guess everyone can relate to something in this film if you can stand the genre. a humble recommend

สงกรานต์ รังสรรค์May 23, 2023

I dont write reviews a lot. But few of the gay-themed movies just touched my soul. This was one of them. Its more than just the movie. It speaks to audience through real and not-at-all-perfect life of the main characters, their sexuality, intimacy and love which doesnt need to be physical, but it has to be at least true and caring. I liked the camerawork, I liked the soundtrack, I liked the acting, dialogues, scenery of L.A. and the way I got touched by it. Best soul toucher I have had for the last few months.

vahetilbianMay 23, 2023

If you're searching for an explanation of successful millennial romantic relationships, it might be characterized by bisexuality without sex. If you're searching for an unconventional romantic comedy? that's what writer/director/star James Sweeney offers in the brilliant Straight Up. It's a rom-com whose roots are firmly placed in the Howard Hawke's world of His Girl Friday, where sex is a form of screwball comedy banter, brilliantly pop-cultured and offered by brainiac characters who want sex but accept words as more forgiving: "You called me." "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did." "My butt dialed you." "Well, I think your butt knows what your heart wants." You might also thin of the less biting, but still bright, Will & Grace. Todd (Sweeney) and Rory (Katie Findlay) meet cute in a library and exchange super-charged dialogue titillating in its wit and emotionally fulfilling like good sex. He is OCD-his whole life is that analytical way-- arranging the books here making her think he's a librarian. He house sits rather than create a home. It's perhaps his OCD that keeps him from a satisfying sexuality, so preoccupied he is with deconstructing life that he misses its joys. He, however, knows he does not want to be alone his whole life. The difference between Hawkes' dialogue or, say Wes Anderson's in The Grand Budapest Hotel, is that Straight Up relies on machinegunned words, whereas the earlier screwball comedies come out almost gently from sweet origins in the head with smoother delivery (Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, for example). Besides the smart dialogue, Straight Up offers, for the main characters' insistence otherwise, benign almost sexless love, which seems counterintuitive but ends up between the two principals an almost ideal state. Yet both characters long for love, a universal desire the lasts throughout the modern biracial and bisexual modes. The comedy lampoons the correctness of our century while it offers a sober commentary on fulfilling relationships that rely on mind over matter. Listen up you uncertain millennials, it's the mind that matters