Director C Jay Cox’s Kiss The Bride shakes up the romantic comedy wedding genre, as Richard Watts discovers.

A smash hit at the recent Mardi Gras and Melbourne Queer Film Festivals, C Jay Cox’s second film after the popular Latter Days is a gay take on the 1997 hit, My Best Friend’s Wedding (which admittedly, thanks to out actor Rupert Everett, was pretty gay already).

The film focuses on Matt (Philipp Karner), the successful editor of a leading gay magazine who suddenly receives an invitation to the wedding of his first-ever boyfriend – the great love of his life, Ryan (James O’Shea).

Returning to his old home town determined to save Ryan from the clutches of whichever harpy is trying to drag him kicking and screaming to the altar, Matt is surprised to discover that Alex, the bride-to-be, is warm, welcoming and, well, actually rather sweet.

“Anyone can arrive at this big crux in their life, something as huge as a wedding, and there’s always that thought of ‘what if?’” says Cox. “Here it’s this first love showing up; and the fact that it’s a man adds this layer that I think we haven’t seen before in the romantic comedy wedding genre.”

Despite the box-office success of Brokeback Mountain, which in 2006 proved that mainstream audiences will flock to gay-themed films, Cox still had difficulties in casting the film’s lead roles.

“There were certainly actors who shied away from playing gay material,” he says. “Nonetheless I feel that we were able to find the best actors for the roles.”

One of those actors is Tori Spelling, who plays Alex, Ryan’s fiancé. She’s a surprisingly sympathetic character, given that the film is aimed at a predominantly gay audience.

“One of the things that really appealed to me, going into the project, was the character of Alex,” Cox explains. “I went into it expecting Matt to get back the love of his life, and what I found myself doing, even unconsciously at some points, was getting won over by this girl.

“The possibility of losing someone you love so much is real; but if the person you love could be happier with somebody else, how many of us would be willing to let them go?” AXN

Kiss the Bride is out now on DVD through FQ Films.