When Boys Fly is a 2002

2002 in film

The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 that explores the world of gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 circuit parties

Circuit party

A circuit party is a large dance event, extending through a night and into the following day, almost always with a number of affiliated events in the days leading up to and following the main event...

.

When Boys Fly played a number of gay and lesbian film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

s before being released on Region 1 DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 on November 26, 2002.

Synopsis

The film follows several attendees of the annual White Party

White Party

The White Party is the name of a number of circuit parties held annually, catering to the LGBT communities. Its name comes from the requirement that party-goers dress in all or almost all white...

 in Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

. The major subjects are:

• Tone, a 21 year-old from Dallas, Texas
  Dallas, Texas
  Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
  
  . Tone has attended several previous circuit parties and has gotten in trouble with out of control recreational drug usage. His stated goal is to become a biology teacher but despite having enough college credits to be a senior he has no major. His roommate Scott is very concerned about his drug use and has delivered an ultimatum: if he "fucks up" at the White Party he'll be thrown out of the house and out of his roommates' lives.

• Brandon, a 23 year-old UCLA student who's never been to a circuit party before. He's a friend of Tone's and they travel to the party together. Brandon is very firm in his decision not to use drugs at the party and worries that he will be ostracized at the party for his decision.

• Floridians
  Florida
  Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
  
   Jon, Jason and Tod. Jon is 19 years old. Jason is in his early 20s. Todd is in his mid-30s and has been out for just two and a half years and believes that he's "living out [the] adolescence" that as a closeted
  Closeted
  Closeted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...
  
   young gay person he couldn't. Jon and Todd have been dating for two years. Before they dated, Tod and Jason dated. Initially there was tension between Jason and Jon but now they're best friends. The only reason Jon agreed to attend was that Todd promised that Jon would be the focus of all of Todd's attention.

Pre-party

Brandon loses track of Tone, who's unconcerned as he seeks out his "circuit friends." Brandon meets Greg, his boyfriend Jeff, and some of his friends and they shop for party outfits. Greg and his group think Brandon is cool, but Brandon initially thinks Greg is a "typical shallow circuit type." As he gets to know them better he realizes that Greg (who was earning his PhD in Psychology at University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 and planned to enter academia) is deeper than he first thought.

Jon and Todd tell of their traumatic experience with the illegal party drug GHB

Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid

γ-Hydroxybutyric acid , also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid and sodium oxybate when used for medicinal purposes, is a naturally occurring substance found in the central nervous system, wine, beef, small citrus fruits, and almost all animals in small amounts. It is also categorized as an illegal...

 at a previous party. After taking a normal dose, both of them stopped breathing within 30 minutes and were hospitalized on respirators for several days.

At the party

Tone is staying sober and not having fun. He meets his friend Matt, who feeds him GHB, rationalizing that if he's the one dosing Tone then Matt can control and monitor his usage.

Jon catches Todd "fucking around" with another man and breaks up with him on the spot. Despite having observed Jon and Todd's bad reactions to GHB, Jason decides to take some. He ends up passed out and Jon and Todd take care of him.

Brandon stays true to his decision to stay off drugs. His fears of ostracism prove to be unfounded.

Post-party

Following their return home, Jon and Todd no longer speak. Several months after the party, Brandon has met a boyfriend and brought him home to meet his mother. Tone continued to party and do drugs until he suffered a mild stroke

Stroke

A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

at age 22. Scott nursed him back to health. Tone entered a rehab center and as of the release date of the film remained clean and sober.

External links

• When Boys Fly at the Internet Movie Database