Revisiting the 1998 gay rom-com ‘The Object of My Affection’ with author Stephen McCauley

Pride Month is official over (whomp, whomp), which means we’re officially a little over halfway through 2023 (WTF?!), which is just wild. Time flies, doesn’t it?

Speaking of time flying, we can hardly believe that it’s been 25 years–a quarter of a century!–since the release of the movie The Object of My Affection, based on the 1987 debut novel by Stephen McCauley.

The 1998 rom-com starred Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd as Nina and George, two roommates–one straight, one gay–who struggle to navigate life, love, friendship, and family in New York City.

In the film, George moves into Nina’s apartment after breaking up with his boyfriend, Joley. Not long after that, Nina learns she’s pregnant by her boyfriend, Vince. When she and Vince break up, she and George decide they’ll raise the child together.

What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out, a lot of things!

Over the course of the pregnancy, Nina falls in love with George, and George falls in love with a guy named Paul, who’s living with a guy named Rodney. Later, Joley returns to try and win George back and Vince rebounds from Nina with George’s colleague Melissa. Meanwhile, Nina pairs off with a guy named Louis, who doesn’t seem to mind she’s pregnant AF. It’s messy, messy, messy, but in the end, everyone winds up happy, even though it takes a while for them to get there.

“It’s hard to believe now what a big deal it was 25 years ago for a Hollywood movie to have a gay male central character,” McCauley tells Queerty. “It took eleven years for it to get made. At a certain point, I assumed it was never going to happen and had made my peace with that.”

“It was supposed to go into production at Paramount, but the plug was pulled at the last moment. As I heard it, they’d just filmed In and Out and didn’t want ‘another gay movie.'”

God forbid there be two gay movies released within the same year.

The film, which also featured legendary British stage actor Nigel Hawthorne and beloved queer icon Allison Janney in supporting roles (plus an early cameo by then up-and-coming Broadway performer Audra McDonald as well as an appearance by young Hayden Panettiere), ended up being produced by 20th Century Fox. It went on to gross $46.9 million at the box office against a $15 million budget. (By comparison, In and Out made $63 million against a $35 million budget, making The Object of My Affection the more commercially successful of the two.)

McCauley says the first time he saw the movie, he was a little thrown.

“I was a little confused by it,” he recalls. “It was [screenwriter] Wendy Wasserstein’s world more than it was mine. It was as if I’d thrown a dinner for a bunch of friends and a group of strangers showed up at the door. But on the whole, I thought the dinner went pretty well. It was more of a Hollywood rom-com than I’d intended in the novel, but then again, writers aren’t the best judges of their books.”

“I haven’t seen the movie in many years–I haven’t reread the novel, either–but I’ve seen bits and pieces on TV. I think it’s held up pretty well.”

We’d have to agree. Unlike other gay movies from that time, The Object of My Affection doesn’t lean as heavily into stereotypes, depicting its queer characters as real people, not archetypes. If anything, it’s the straight characters who feel like archetypes: the needy “f*g hag”, her loser boyfriend, the nosy older sister, the kooky ballroom dance instructor. And many of the jokes still land, largely because they aren’t rooted in homophobia.

The film’s score, composed by four-time Academy Award nominee George Fenton, was also released as a CD soundtrack and included two versions of the classic American showtune “You Were Meant For Me” performed by Sting. (McDonald performs the song in the movie.)

A while back, a scene from the film’s climax, during which Nina pours her heart out to George, found its way onto TikTok, where it was discovered by a new audience.

“That scene enjoyed a viral moment on TikTok a year or two ago,” McCauley says. “The performances by Aniston and Rudd are solid, and the scene at a wedding where she confronts him about their relationship (not in the book at all) is quite moving.”

He adds, “I know the movie isn’t to everyone’s taste–what is?–but once in a while, I hear from someone that it meant a lot to them when they saw it. That makes me happy.”

Asked what Nina and George might be up to today, 25 (or 36) years later, McCauley replies, “I suspect they’ve moved on in their lives and live in different cities. They rarely see each other, but are happy to mythologize their time as roommates when they do.”

“Nina’s probably had a hip replacement and George, who claims in the novel that ‘salt is my favorite food,’ has high blood pressure and is on a reduced sodium diet.”

The Object of My Affection can be streamed on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu. The book is available in both paperback and as an e-book. McCauley’s next novel, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble, will be out in January 2024.

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