ALL THE RAGE

“You don't find that man incredibly attractive?” “No . . . he's too perfect.” That catty banter between two waiters at a trendy gay bar encapsulates the ironies in Roland Tec's incredibly attractive feature debut, a sardonic gaze at the culture of narcissism perpetuated among gay urban professionals in Boston. In this school of “guppies” none falshes his fins brighter than attorney Christopher Bedford. He's wealthy, blond, toned and constantly on the prowl at clubs and gyms around South End. Yet to his closest friends he confides that he's also pining for Mr. Right. Chris seems to find him in Stewart, a sensitive book editor – but Stewart can't match Chris, either in physique or income, and Bedford's attention inevitably drifts to bigger biceps, better bodies. With artful finesse, and without undue harshness or hauteur, Tec indicts a philosophy that values good looks above and beyond all else, an ultimately empty lifestyle in which the eye of the beholder is only skin deep.