While plenty of romantic comedies show straight couples dating and falling in love, gay people rarely see themselves represented in rom-coms.
However, an upcoming Valentine’s Day film, The Thing About Harry — starring 28-year-old gay Gray’s Anatomy actor Jake Borelli and Queer Eye‘s “culture guy” Karamo Brown — wants to change that.
Related: This absolutely romantic video of a gay couple’s proposal has gone viral & it’s obvious why
In the film, Borelli will play Sam, a “handsome, funny, neurotic, intelligent young gay man who combines a scathing wit with an overly idealistic worldview,” according to Deadline.
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Sam was bullied as an out teenager in his small-town Missouri high school. So he’s less than thrilled when he’s forced to take a car ride with his high school enemy, Harry, to attend a friend’s Valentine’s Day engagement party in their hometown. But on the way, Sam learns that Harry has come out, leading to a friendship and a possible romance.
Harry — played by new actor Niko Tehro — is an “’emotionally uncomplicated, promiscuous player’ who secretly ‘yearns for love, family and stability,’ even though commitment terrifies him,” TV Line adds.
Brown will play Paul, “an exceedingly well put-together yet overbearing and pretentious gay man,” and the film’s gay director Peter Paige will play Sam’s “warm-hearted roommate” Casey.
In a statement, Paige and fellow executive producers Greg Gugliotta and F.J. Denny director said that true equality for gay people involves seen their lives reflected in pop culture:
As young gay men in the 90s, whenever a rom-com opened, we would watch the leading lady fall in love and imagine what it would be like if the boy was saying all those things to another boy. We’ve always wanted to make a movie — an unabashedly romantic comedy — that queer boys wouldn’t have to translate.
The film is expected to come out February 2020 on the streaming platform Freeform.