If you’ve been looking for somewhat boring but also maybe just refreshingly and importantly nonchalant but also maybe just somewhat boring gay television to watch in the absence of Looking (cancelled by HBO after two seasons), you’ll soon be able to look no further than the just-announced Saturday, July 23 release of the Looking movie. (Immediately after the cancellation, HBO appeased fans with the news that there’d be a movie to conclude the stories.) Of course, like the sweetest of one-night-stands, whatever fulfillment you’re left with will shortly dissipate after the one-off event and leave you looking once again.
The feature-length conclusion to the story of the three Lookers (Patrick, Agustín and Dom) is called Looking: The Movie — a based-on-TV title formula that makes it somehow sound flashier than perhaps it intends to. Thankfully, from the description provided on TVLine, it doesn’t look like the semi-Fab 3 will all decide to take a luxury trip to Abu Dhabi to help Samantha develop a PR campaign at any point.
From the sound of it, there’s been a bit of a time lapse, as Patrick — last seen in San Francisco at the dramatic end of his relationship with British video game tycoon Kevin — is returning to the city after a year away “to celebrate a momentous event with his old friends” (which hopefully has nothing to do with Dom’s Piri Piri chicken entrepreneurship). And, wouldn’t ya know it, once back, Patrick “must face the unresolved relationships he left behind and make difficult choices about what’s important to him.”
One very exciting thing is that Andrew Haigh — who co-created the series, as well as sporadically wrote and directed episodes — is returning to direct the film (and wrote the script alongside co-executive producer Michael Lannan). Haigh recently showed the breadth of his knack for feature-length storytelling with the fantastic and disquieting 45 Years, and perhaps he’ll be able to conclude his cancelled series in a similarly focused cinematic effort.