By MARK GRIFFIN
Staff Writer
 

Kevin Kline plays a well loved high school poetry teacher from a charmingly provincial small town who is declared gay before millions by a former student turned scruffy Hollywood heart throb (Matt Dillon), who wins an Oscar for playing a gay soldier and thanks his inspiration on the international telecast. Rudnick's delicious premise is a direct steal from Tom Hanks' acceptance speech upon winning an Academy Award for "Philadelphia." It's a brilliant movie-ready idea laden with possibilities, and the talented cast digs right in.

Kevin Kline is always a welcome, likeable presence on screen. Even when tormenting a luminous Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" (Universal Pictures, 1982), he exhibits an irresistible magnetism. Like Mandy Patinkin or Steve Martin, Kline seems to enjoy inflating his characterizations with a go-for-broke manic robustness. This quality emerges in a few of the broader moments of physical comedy in "In and Out", but such galvanic joie de vivre works best when kept in check, as it is here - with a naturalistic lid clamped on for good measure. Thankfully, Kline never ventures into the depths of lisping, histrionic offensiveness that Nathan Lane sunk to so shamefully in "The Birdcage". Instead, Kline plays his confused teacher in much the same way Steven Weber played his confused cater waiter in "Jeffrey" - with an unaffected and charming restraint.

Free of the saccharine vacuousness of "Three Men And A Baby" or such banal attempts at action adventure as "High Road To China" or "Her Alibi," Selleck registers on screen at last. Playing a slightly tainted character seems to agree with him and Magnum, P.I. makes the most of his role as a ruthless reporter for a television tabloid who falls for Kline's not so straight straight arrow.

For a number of years, Joan Cusack has been outshining one leading lady after another - by virtue of her fluidly quirky presence (Think: "Working Girl," "Married To The Mob," "Men Don't Leave.") Finally, this engaging second banana has been bumped to the top of the marquee with material worthy of her talents in hand. As Kline's jilted intended, Cusack dashes about in her worthless wedding dress and spews a litany of obscenities against religiously revered gay icon Barbra Streisand. Cusack and the other actors triumph with Paul Rudnick's priceless dialogue and despite his habit of letting first rate one liners substitute for the creation of fully dimensional characters.

While both "In and Out" and his own adaptation of "Jeffrey," Rudnick seems to be valiantly striving to simultaneously resurrect an old movie genre while giving birth to a new one: the gay screwball comedy.

In fact, if it weren't for their Ray-Banned, homoerotic hipness, Rudnick's stable of characters could easily inhabit a sepia toned universe that would be right at home on American Movie Classics.

Like "In and Out," some of the finest screwball showcases of the 1930's concerned a small town protagonist submerging his true identity, fearful that exposure would result in public outcry and ostracization from "polite" society. (For a prime example, see Richard Boleslawski's "Theodore Goes Wild" (Columbia Pictures, 1936) in which Irene Dunne plays a mild mannered church organist who must conceal the fact the she has penned a bawdy, bestselling bodice ripper - if only the hatchet faced ladies in the front pew knew!)

Unlike the townsfolk in the vintage vehicles from Hollywood's heydey, the denizens of Rudnick's quaint hamlet opt not for insular conformity but for the freedom of self empowered liberation. In a truly winning final scene, Kline's friends, neighbors and graduating students show their solidarity by "outing" themselves to the triumphant strains of Streisand's anthem, "People." Rudnick's proud, life affirming message is clear and resounding: gay people are everywhere - teaching poetry, coaching football, delivering the mail and yes - even alive and well in Lewiston, Maine.