Don't you hate it when you subscribe to a streaming service for one movie or tv show, and then find nothing else of interest? We just finished Paramount Plus for Twin Peaks, and now we've in Peacock for Wicked, Nosferatu, and since I'm trying to watch everything from Adam Devine, the hottest guy on the planet, Break Point. Done. But I'm not going to spend $18 a month to watch three movies, so here's a review of Grosse Pointe Garden Society: one of the garden-society members is male, gardening is gay-coded, so surely he'll be gay.
Note: Grosse Pointe is an affluent suburb of Detroit. It just means "big tip," as in tip of land, in French, but it sounds funny.
Prelude: The gardeners dump a body into a hole they dug. The four stories are interspliced, but I'll separate them to make the plots easier to follow, and give them nicknames: From left to right, Entitled, Pink Hat, Male Gardener, and White Hat.
Pink Hat's Story: Six months earlier, a park area with a lot of flowers. Pink Hat puts up a "lost dog" flier on the community bulletin board and narrates: "They say people look like their dogs, but when you're in a garden club, you're more like the flowers you plant." She begins unloading geraniums, but the Snippy Leader tells her that they're not good enough to win the award this year.
"I think I'd be a geranium," Pink Hat continues, flashing back to smooching with her underwear-clad boyfriend (they don't unclench long enough for a screen shot). Then to her high school class, where they're discussing the Romantic Poets (that's the Romantic Era, 1790-1830, not "romance'). She hates it, although she does gaze lustfully at one of the Hunkoids (Christian Finlayson).
Later, Pink Hat and boyfriend (Alexander Hodge) have dinner with his parents, who criticize her writing ambitions and his job painting restaurant signs. They want them to move into their rental property, four bedrooms and two baths, for when you have children. "You know the heterosexist trajectory: job, house, wife, kids? Have some kids, already."
He approaches threateningly, and hints that because she "got personal," he killed her dog.
Seething, Pink Hat complains to the Principal: "He's rude, disrespectful..." Arrogant? But the Principal won't expell him, because his parents are rich: they built the lacrosse stadium, the library...well everything. "We work for them; they can do what they want."
Left: Hung Hodge
So she accosts Hunkoid's mom at the beauty parlor and says that she's reconsidered his grade: now it's an F, "because you've failed him as a parent." That's not a good reason. "Your son killed my dog." Not a good reason either.
Cut to Pink Hat being fired for standing up to the rich people. Hunkoid drives up in his new car to gloat.
Potential Victim: Hunkoid or his Mom
Pink Hat tells us that Male Gardener is a dandelion. They can grow anywhere. Cut to him bringing his two toddler kids to "see Mommy." Heterosexual identity established at Minute 2.14, unless you count the car talk. He bursts into the office to find Mom "pollinating with another flower," har har. So they broke up, and now he's gazing longlingly at Pink Hat.
In the present, Male Gardener drops off the kids at his ex-wife's elegant Tudor. But he has them for two more minutes, so he forces them to stay in the car, while they complain and ex-wife and Current Husband (Josh Ventura) glare at him.
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Left: on his Instagram, Josh Ventura claims that he's one of these guys, the stars of the tv series Satisfaction. His followers commiserate over having a guy lying next to him; that must have been awful!
But he not actually in the photo. They are Family Man Matt Passmore and Blair Redford as the hustler his wife hired. Josh appears in just one episode.
Back to Gardening Society: Male Gardener waits in the back yard, glaring, for the kids' clothes to be washed and dried (by the ex-wife, naturally). In other news, Husband is speaking at his kid's career day. Male Gardener offers to do it, but they say "Don't be silly, you have an awful job." But it's Ex-Wife's fault: she promised to stay home with the kids while he started his car restoration business, but then she had an affair and cancelled the deal.
Male Gardener and Current Husband compete to see who can throw a football at the son (into sports, like all "real boys." Annoyingly gender polarized).
Later, Male Gardener is driving with his kids, when he callously drives by a stalled motorist, even though he's a skilled auto mechanic. Then he thinks, this might be a way to prove that he has a bigger d*ck that Current Husband, so he turns around and helps, blabbing car trivia and grunting. The Motorist wants to thank him somehow. Male Gardener grins. No, of course he doesn't have that in mind. No gay people in this universe.
More after the break
Left: The real Josh Ventura with Victor Chen, who he describes as "too much man." You just need to lube up better, buddy.
Next comes Career Day at the kids' school. Current Husband brags about being a tax attorney, boring everyone. Then Male Gardener arrives with the incredibly wonderful car of the stranded motorist -- he borrowed it to impress the kids. They are overwhelmed with admiration. It must be a straight thing. He grins at Current Husband: "See, mine is bigger."
Humiliated, Current Husband tries to dig up dirt on Male Gardener, so he can ruin him and "take his kids."
Potential Victim: Current Husband
White Hat's Story: She is introduced talking to her friend Pink Hat about how much they'd like to murder the Snippy Leader for forcing them to plant too many tulips.
White Hat is a zinnia, the hardest-working flower in the garden, "but they seldom get what they need." Cut to her obsessively making sure that every detail in her living room is perfect, before putting on gross, revealing underwear and atempting to seduce her husband (Jocko Sims) as he is busy doing cardio. Girl, cardio is important. Wait til he's done. She fondles her breasts hopefully, but he doesn't look up.
Next we see her at work, showing a heterosexual couple around a house with a fruity realtor (Saamer Usmani, below). When they leave, the two start smooching. Darn, I thought he was gay. I'll call him Gay Tease Realtory.
Gay Tease Realtor offers to leave his wife for White Hat, but she refuses because she has kids. So he gives her a bracelet to look at when she's trying unsuccesfully to turn on her husband.
Cut to White Hat's husband, who doesn't like having sex with her, leaving for a meeting in Dubai. "But you promised to help Dakota build his pinewood derby car." More cars? I think heterosexual doesn't mean "liking the other sex," it means "liking cars."
"You do it. Tools are in the basement."
"But I'm a woman." So no woman can ever be good with tools? You're rather sexist, lady.
"Well, I run a global security firm. I have to go to a meeting in Dubai. Figure it out."
He leaves. Uh-oh, there's a guy watching from his car. He pulls out a gun.
Potential Victim: White Hat's husband, or the Gay Tease Realtor
Entitled's Story: She's introduced getting a tour of the garden from White Hat, who brags that they won the Southeastern Michigan Gardening Award three times in a row, until the Evil Club cheated with their genetically-modified zinnias. The problem is, most of the members aren't really into gardening, they just want an excuse to commisserate about how horrible their husbands are and get drunk.
Entitled Person is a lily-of-the-valley, invasive, wild, and without boundaries. Cut to her dancing on a table and fondling her breasts during a Christmas party, and then signing her latest book, Dancing through Divorce. Later, driving while texting and drunk, she smashes into the town's fountain, and is sentenced to working for the Garden Club. "She knows nothing about gardening, but what's the worst that can happen?"
Cut to Entitled having lunch with her girlfriend -- nope, gay tease, her PR person. She wonders why everyone hates her. PR suggests waiting until her community service is over, then getting everyone to love her again by starting a scholarship.
After discovering that the man she is cheating on her husband with is cheating with Entitled, White Hat drops by for a visit. They discuss how much of a mess their lives are. Entitled, who has written a bestselling book on divorce, asks, "If you hate your husband so much, why don't you leave him?" "I've got kids." Entitled understands completely. Must be a straight thing.
Later, Entitled meets with first recepient of her scholarship (Felix Wolfe, above and left) in a coffee shop. He'll get a free ride to the college of his choice. He wants to know why she picked a screw-up instead of one of the smart kids at his school. "I'm trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did, like getting pregnant ini the tenth grade." "Well, I'm not dating anyone." So he won't get pregnant? Is he gay? No, no gay people in this world. He means he won't get a girl pregnant.
Also interspliced are scenes from the burial; setting the car on fire; trying to get rid of the cell phone; and discovering that the Garden Club's new project is putting in a koi pond, which means digging up the place where they buried the body! The end.
Beefcake: Some shirtless guys here and there.
Heterosexism: This is a gay-free world informed by the problems of wealthy straight people: not being fulfilled in your job, having affairs or being the victims of affairs, and proving that your d*ck is big enough.
My Grade: It was actually quite entertaining, a peak into an alien world. I just wish they had some gay people. B.
See also: Surreal Estate: Realtor and his scoobies investigate haunted houses, with a gay couple
High Potential, Episode 1.3: This one has a gay character. And a murder. And Jocko Sims.
Obliterated: Do you want a review of "The Worst Movie of the Year," or should I skip to the d*cks
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