Acclaimed Film About Gay Life In Rural Montana Is Still Amazing 15 Years Later

When Thomas Bezucha’s Big Eden was first released in 2000 (five years before the Northwestern-set Brokeback Mountain and two years after the Wyoming murder of Matthew Shepard), the gay rural love story set in the fictional town of Big Eden, Montana earned best film awards at Outfest, Frameline and other LGBT film festivals as well as being nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. At that time it was known as the most honored film in the history of gay and lesbian film festivals. Big Eden has since gone on to secure a steady home on most Top 100 gay film lists and it is finally being released on Blu-ray for its 15th anniversary in October.

While even Roger Ebert noted the film’s implausible premise that a community of small-town characters could be so heartwarmingly pro-gay, writer-director Bezucha struck the perfect chord of wish fulfillment as thirty-something closet case Henry (played by the charmingly average Arye Gross) revisits his hometown and comes up against his straight high school crush Dean (played by Matt Bomer‘s hunky White Collar co-star Tim DeKay) and possible new love interest Pike (the terrific Eric Schweig, who won the Best Actor award at Outfest for his performance).

This fresh new HD version of the trailer above looks terrific. The Blu-ray is coming from Wolfe Video on October 13th just two days after National Coming Out Day.