Initially, The Broken Hearts Club seems to petition for the replacement of Hollywood's homosexual stereotypes with less ingrained caricatures. ("Then we wouldn't have to shamefully compare ourselves to Steel Magnolias.") Its characters, including a Karen Carpenter worshipper and a club-hopping, pill-popping boy-toy, sit around a table at their favourite dive (for which they play softball under the team name "Broken Hearts") dissing such modern motion picture standbys of late as "noble, suffering AIDS victims," "common street hustlers," and "stylish confidantes to lovelorn women."

But then writer-director Greg Berlanti pulls an effective fast one on us: Jack ("Frasier"'s John Mahoney), the restaurant's owner as well as said group's patriarchal conscience, lectures, "It was easy when you couldn't talk about it. Now...you talk about it so much that sometimes you forget about all the other things that you are." Neither these friends nor Hollywood, Jack is arguing, can get past the very concept of being gay. With that moral implemented, the story becomes a canny journey of self-discovery (or, where hobbyist photographer Dennis (Timothy Olyphant) is concerned, self-actualization) for each of its protags.

The Broken Hearts Club works for it and definitely succeeds at turning "gay and average" people into average people, preferences aside, before our eyes. Even its melodramatic third-act develops irrespective of anybody's sexual orientation. Still, I wonder if the genre was wrong for skipping a Sidney Poitier-era that dealt with homophobia in social realist terms. Berlanti's film exhibits certain lazy and potentially harmful traits common to gay cinema's most enlightened (and light-hearted) examples, such as the Broken Hearts' startling lack of athleticism (they feel threatened by opposing players who need canes and walkers to travel bases) and a largely straight (and talented, don't get me wrong) cast acting fey. Chalk it up to the indomitable ether of American prejudice.

On DVD is a fulfilling way to watch The Broken Hearts Club, since the disc contains a rather edifying commentary from Berlanti and co-producer Mickey Liddell. Their rap session explores the genesis of the project, including the requisite Kevin Williamson plug (like Chuck & Buck's Buck, screenwriter Mike White, Berlanti's work on Williamson's "Dawson's Creek" opened doors), and covers the film's autobiographical aspects. It's revelatory that Berlanti found Olyphant's mentor the hardest to sketch, as the character, richly though he's portrayed, is stuck pontificating the ABC After School Special aspects of being gay.

Berlanti and Liddell also wax optionally during seven deleted scenes, the most dearly departed of them a heart-to-heart over cigars between Jack and "newbie" Kevin (Andrew Keegan), the worst of them one sentimental reconciliation too many. Additional extras: talent files, trailers for The Broken Hearts Club, All About My Mother, Groove, Futuresport, and Go, plus a DVD-ROM link to the The Broken Hearts Club's official website. As for the film's transfer, it comes in two flavours--overmatted 2.35:1, 16x9-enhanced widescreen and full-frame--but The Broken Hearts Club isn't especially well-photographed: the notoriously unforgiving format accents soft-focused shots and draws attention to flat lighting. Audio-wise, the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix sounds smooth if commonplace.-Bill Chambers