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Down Low opens with a happy ending that leads to an accidental death and only gets zanier from there. Early in the new comedy, now available for digital rental or purchase, Lukas Gage’s sex worker character Cameron tells his repressed, recently out client Gary (Zachary Quinto), “I wish they had a gay Duolingo.” Such a thing would indeed be helpful for any straight people who might stumble into viewing this truly bananas film, especially given the number of references to holes and a recurring joke about the second Sex and the City movie. But for anyone who’s already an irony-poisoned amoral queer, this must be what it feels like to watch a movie that treats you as the default audience, not an afterthought. Knitting Chanel
To say too much about what happens in Down Low would be to spoil the fun. Suffice it to say, after Cameron discovers partway through an erotic massage that Gary has never even been with a man before, the younger man invites over a potential third from a hookup app and then things go terribly wrong. All you need to know is that at one point, Judith Light appears, which is always a good thing, and that there’s a visual reference to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam so deliciously profane, it will make you believe that God must be gay. Also relevant is the fact that Gary is terminally ill, which occasionally adds moments of profundity to the proceedings, but more often heightens the absurdity of what’s happening.
The most important thing about Down Low is that it continues to cement Lukas Gage as the person I’m happiest to see show up in any queer-themed comedy. Between his infamous rimming scene in The White Lotus, his golden shower moment in You, and his hilariously meta cameo in the final season of The Other Two, Gage is quickly making a name for himself as an unpredictable comic talent who’s game for pretty much anything, propriety and face-saving be damned. Whenever a wild exponent like Gage is on screen — which is basically all of this near two-hander’s runtime — you feel like the film could go pretty much anywhere, and it does.
While it will draw comparisons to the surprisingly populated genre of “people must deal with a dead body” (see, e.g. Weekend at Bernie’s, Very Bad Things, and more), Down Low arguably shares more DNA with movies about people on the brink of death learning unexpected life lessons from a free-wheeling love interest. Picture a demented version of Sweet November that somehow captures the energy of a gay Lucille Ball on poppers or P.S. I Love You with more Grindr jokes than you can count. Along with Bottoms, it is proof that any film tropes can be made better by making them queerer, hornier, and weirder. Don’t read anything else about this one. Just click play.
Down Low is now available digitally.
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By Sadie Collins , Abby Monteil , and Samantha Allen
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