Main Cast: Lane Janger, Joelle Carter, Guillermo Diaz, David Lee Russek, Jennifer Esposito
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
Producer-turned-director Lane Janger also stars in this sexual comedy of manners about a woman who turns her groom-to-be's sapphic fantasies back on him. Just a few weeks before he's due to be married, fireman Anthony (Janger) decides that it's now-or-never time for his fantasy of making love to his fiancée, Amy (Joelle Carter), and another woman at the same time. Although she has repeatedly rejected such a scenario, this time an angry Amy agrees -- as long as Anthony will make love with her and another man at the same time. Soon, the couple find themselves going on "dates" outside their relationship. Anthony grudgingly allows Victor (Guillermo Diaz), a closeted, inexperienced college student who's had a crush on him since high school, to hang out with him and his firehouse cronies, hoping all the while that Amy will call his bluff. Amy, meanwhile, befriends Victor's pal Michelle (Jennifer Esposito), a lesbian furniture maker recovering from a recent breakup. Anthony's fellow firefighters adjust surprisingly well to their colleague's new friend, but problems ensue when Amy's expatriate parents show up early for the wedding, interrupting their daughter's tentative experimentation. Just One Time began its life as an eight-minute short that premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival; it was screened with the feature Ma Vie En Rose during that film's Canadian theatrical run and was later included in the collection Boy's Life 3. Principals Esposito, Carter, and Diaz reprise their roles from the short, while Janger shares screenwriting duties with Columbia film school alumna Jennifer Vandever in a novel arrangement that allowed them to collaborate on the first act and then split up, with his scribing the second act and her the third. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
This solid indie saw Lane Janger, producer of festival hits such as I Like It Like That and I Think I Do, take on his first writing and directing tasks with considerable success. Shot in the filmmaker's own East Village neighborhood with additional locations in Brooklyn and New Jersey, the film capably if unshowily captures a sense of urban community that cuts across age, race, and sexual orientation. The characters are well drawn -- and well played by a seasoned indie cast -- while the plot and dialogue remain believable even when the twists and turns are fairly easy to spot. As for the picture's titillating premise, it's interesting enough given the pop culture prevalence of two-girls-and-a-guy scenarios. But at heart, Just One Time is an old-fashioned screwball romance, one whose sweetly moralistic vision of monogamous love is upheld through all sorts of offbeat sexual situations. It's rare to see a film that throws together characters of such varied sexual outlooks without resorting to too many stereotypes. Still, the nicely written interactions between Anthony, his macho friends, and his would-be boyfriend seem somewhat unrealistic in their vision of tolerance; it's hard to believe such he-men would so easily befriend a gay boy even as ingratiating as Victor -- a part written especially for Guillermo Diaz, a veteran of Janger's films. Diaz has played essentially the same sweet street kid in films ranging from Nowhere to Party Girl, but here there's a deeper current of insecurity and an even sharper comic sense than in those earlier roles. Jennifer Esposito, meanwhile, provides a beguiling mix of tomboy sass, lipstick-lesbian glamour, and wake-up-call realism as the woman who puts a threateningly human face on Anthony's heretofore abstract fantasies. If the romantic leads ultimately seem a little boring compared to these gender outlaws, well, maybe that's because audiences so seldom see gay people portrayed as the victims rather than the instigators of sexual confusion. Aside from such sociological discussions, Just One Time remains a warm and well-observed little comedy. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Kerry Barden - Casting, Billy Hopkins - Casting, Suzanne Smith - Casting, Lane Janger - Director, Mitch Stanley - Editor, Marcus Hu - Executive Producer, David R. Ginsburg - Executive Producer, Charlotte Mickie - Executive Producer, Edward Bilous - Composer (Music Score), Stephen Beatrice - Production Designer, Michael St. Hilaire - Cinematographer, Jeff Roth - Producer, Lane Janger - Producer, Jasmine Kosovic - Producer, Exile Ramirez - Producer, Noah Vivekanand Timan - Sound/Sound Designer, Damian Canelos - Sound/Sound Designer, Lane Janger - Screenwriter, Jennifer Vandever - Screenwriter
