Pit Stop, an ambitious undertaking about two gay men, their current relationships, and the flings that eventually lead them to one another, never becomes the great movie packed so densely inside of it. There is plenty to love about the film’s subtext. For one, it devotes equal amounts of time to heterosexual and homosexual relationships in a way that treats both of them as normal. More than that, it does so in a film set in small-town Texas, by default one of the most conservative places in the country, and so there are several references to needing to hide homosexuality that, with the film’s progressive politics, becomes fairly despicable (as illustrated by a timely joke told at dinner between two characters). That is to say, Pit Stop finds a way to manage to portray homosexual relationships as being very much the same as any other, even in the most secretive of circumstances, despite making a deal out of the way it is seen as being “different.” It’s a subtle and much-needed call for equality.
At the same time, that virtue comes with a vice: It relies on a large cast of characters, none of whom are properly developed. As such, the eventual meeting between our two protagonists, Ernesto (Marcus DeAnda) and Gabe (Bill Heck), feels like an afterthought, like it could be just another meeting between any two characters in the film. Pit Stop simply tries to make too much out of every character, which also includes Gabe’s ex-wife Shannon (Amy Seimetz), Ernesto’s ex-boyfriend Luis (Alfredo Maduro), Shannon’s gay friend Les (Corby Sullivan), and her straight coworker Winston (John Merriman). The diverse cast is utilized to endorse progressive attitudes regarding sexuality (and to a lesser extent, race), but it is also too large for proper development in just 80 minutes. With another half hour, it could work brilliantly, but as it stands, supporting characters threaten to overtake the leads and invested interest has no time for a proper payoff.
Pit Stop entwines the parallel lives of Ernesto and Gabe, displaying their living situations with exes they have long broken up with, but both of those relationships lack the back story to make their loneliness come out of the screen, and the quick hook-ups along the way are hard to distinguish from an actual prospective relationship. In particular, it’s impossible to know what is going on with Shannon and Winston, which is given a large chunk of time before suddenly being placed on the backburner, or between Gabe and Les, which plays like it could be the relationship the film is working toward the whole time. Instead, this too disappears, and it’s hard to tell what would prevent the same from happening between Gabe and Ernesto. Extra screen time devoted to kisses and its place at the film’s end, in addition to the parallel structure, suggest that this is what the film has been working toward, but the film is too rushed to feel like it’s reached a resolution. Meanwhile, side plots, such as those involving another of Ernesto’s exes and Luis’ youth and living situation (he lives with Ernesto but is soon kicked out) seem entirely unnecessary given how little time is found for them.
In addition, the emphasis on place, integral to the story not just for the politics, but also the feelings of loneliness and escape, comes through more in dialogue than in cinematography. If not for the verbal reminders, it would be hard to know exactly where Pit Stop takes place. The implicit nature of Texas conservatism does not need to be shown, but the idea of small-town Texas is integral to the story in other ways, too. Ernesto’s encourages Luis to escape the small-town trappings while Gabe and Ernesto regret having not done so, but the uninspired cinematography never gives us the desolate images to match, and so the conversations about escaping don’t resonate.
Where Pit Stop fails as an ensemble drama, however, it succeeds as a study of the universality of leaving and entering relationships, capturing people as they decide they need to see other people but aren’t quite ready for it yet. Yen Tan, who co-wrote the script with David Lowery, does a great job structuring the film to emphasize parallels, and even though the relationships we see are so different—Shannon and Gabe have a daughter together, while Ernesto thinks it’s best for the much-younger Luis to go back to school and pursue his dreams—the editing dismisses the differences and focuses on similarities. In Pit Stop, loneliness and love span age, orientation, skin color, and class. Again, none of this is fleshed out enough to make a lasting impact, but on a purely formal level, it’s impressive what Tan is able to bring out of such an underwritten story. It’s just a shame that in the end, things come together so haphazardly.