Christopher Isherwood lived in
Berlin during the Weimar Republic era and later wrote about that time in a
bestselling short-story collection adapted into the plays and films I Am A
Camera and Cabaret. Isherwood considered his Berlin
years one of the few times that he felt "free" as gay man in a gay-unfriendly
era. He left Germany before Hitler took full command, and found his way to
Hollywood, where he worked on scripts, socialized with movie stars, and
immersed himself in Los Angeles' nascent—and still largely
secret—gay culture. And then he met Don Bachardy, a slight, handsome teenage
beach bum who charmed Isherwood with his naïveté and boyish enthusiasm. They
become instant companions, and Isherwood was so comfortable having Bachardy
around that he once again found the freedom of Berlin in this new community of
two.
Tina Mascara and Guido Santi's
documentary Chris & Don. A Love Story recounts Isherwood and Bachardy's 33-year love
affair through its low points and considerable high points. Most of the film
consists of Bachardy telling anecdotes, set to home-movie footage and smartly
staged recreations, with the occasional complementary reading from Isherwood's
work by actor Michael York. Bachardy describes their unlikely partnership, and
how it weathered affairs, jealousy, and feelings of inadequacy, before ending
with Isherwood's death from cancer in 1986—an event that Bachardy
documented in a series of vivid sketches that showed his lover wracked with
pain.
Mascara and Santi go along with
Bachardy's tendencies toward digression, which means Chris & Don isn't always as clear and focused
as it could be, and their decision to animate some of Isherwood's cutesy love
letters comes off as a little cloying. (Of course, love itself can be cloying
too.) Isherwood and Bachardy's story features cameos by a galaxy of literary
and cinema stars, but few are as impressive as the protagonists, who defied the
conventions of their times by living openly as a happy, well-adjusted couple.
Describing the early stages of their sexual attraction, Bachardy sums up the
whole outrageously fortunate arc of his life. "It was exactly what the boy
wanted," Bachardy says. "And he flourished."