The Broken Hearts Club is touted as the first film with exclusively gay characters to receive major-studio financing since 1970's The Boys In The Band. But no one will ever mistake the tepid, feel-good dramedy for anything groundbreaking. Given that major-studio boutiques routinely pick up low-budget, gay-themed indie projects at film festivals, the fact that Sony coughed up a modest sum ($1.5 million) to produce one in-house seems like a minor distinction. But it may explain why writer-director Greg Berlanti goes so far out of his way to make gay culture palatable to the masses, turning a workable premise about a volatile group of friends in West Hollywood (think George Cukor's The Men) into a bland, sexless soap opera. The head writer for TV's Dawson's Creek, a show that attracted mild controversy for its depiction of gay characters in prime time, Berlanti can't escape his own formula, peddling the same mix of smug, self-conscious chatter and predictably melodramatic crises. A would-be slice-of-life about how gay men interact, support, and compete with each other, The Broken Hearts Club is close in more than name only to The Breakfast Club, hemming a fine cast to narrowly defined character types. There's the codger (John Mahoney), the "newbie" (Andrew Keegan), the punk (Zach Braff), the flamer (Billy Porter), the neurotic (Matt McGrath), the pretty boy who sleeps around (Dean Cain), and the ugly guy who doesn't (Ben Weber). At the center of the clique is Timothy Olyphant (Scream, Go), an aspiring photographer trying to break his habit of one-night stands and cultivate more meaningful relationships. Some of Berlanti's banter is sharp and funny, and the agreeable tone helps his cause, but he suffers from Penny Marshall Disease, juggling myriad subplots without allowing one to escape a pat resolution. After not one but two frantic group trips to the emergency room, The Broken Hearts Club approaches a level of unreality to rival its major-studio brethren.