SAVE ME’S TITLE is both a secular and spiritual plea from people with no control over their emotional lives.This wide-ranging understanding is what makes Robert Cary’s gay-themed movie interesting.

It’s neither a problem nor a protest movie. This treatment of the Christian “ex-gay” movement eventually centers on Gayle and Ted (Judith Light and Ted Lange), a married heterosexual couple holding themselves to gether, who run a re-education retreat for gay men seeking religious help to reject homosex uality.Their marital tension matches the dilemmas of the young men they counsel— particularly self-destructive Mark (Chad Allen), and overwhelmed Scott (Robert Gant).When these morally confused men find each other at the camp, first as helpmates then lovers, it shakes Gayle and Ted’s fragile unity.

While it’s TV-drama simple, Save Me’s frankness about sexual/religious conflict gives both partying and faithfulness their due—avoid ing TV sensationalism or Brokeback Mountain sanctimony. Cary makes some memorable im ages: from Mark’s frantic depravity to Scot holding out his hand to his intolerant father. His subject is family more than moral controversy— the same root topic of the visually audacious queer French film, Man of My Life.As a reli gious martinet and her disillusioned disciple, Light and Gant reveal their need for each other.

These character sketches are compelling. Mean while Allen’s spiritual hunger is, credibly, torn between respecting their best intentions.

Save Me ingeniously shows how oppression effects all sides of a familial rift; its unembar rassed compassion for people who misunder stand their own sexuality is an original perspective—a clash between cultural author ity and all its prodigal sons. Screenwriters Robert Desiderio and Craig Chester build em pathy without the usual partisan demonization or martyrdom, and the actors are intensely committed to that end.

> Save Me

Directed by Robert Cary, at Clearview Chelsea Running time: 96 min.