A Different Story

Critical reception varied from mixed to negative, with a general consensus that the forced and formulaic ending countered whatever appeal existed in the first half of the film.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times lauded Meg Foster's "aggressive vitality" but ultimately found the movie seriously flawed: "Mr. Aaron's ineptitude knows no bounds, especially when it comes to blasting an insufferable score, ending scenes at uninteresting moments, and making the film's chronology completely obscure."[1] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and called it "patronizing," because the film "pretends to like its characters' sexual preferences, but really it snickers at them."[2] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a first class production whose only — but serious — flaw is a Henry Olek script that begins with brilliant cleverness but dissolves by fadeout into formula banality."[3] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "until the sitcom formulations take over at the end, 'A Different Story' derives its humor and its warmth from carefully observed, and very well and sympathetically enacted characters, operating in a milieu which is also carefully but not always sympathetically observed."[4] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a trifle with redeeming personality appeal and a genuinely affectionate temperament. As the supposedly disparate lovers, Perry King and Meg Foster make an overwhelmingly attractive and compatible couple, and their sexual rapport is enhanced by Paul Aaron's attentive, straightforward direction."[5] Writing in the Seattle Gay News, Bill Alpert wrote that "it's a real surprise that A Different Story is as rotten a film as it is. This cheap bit of exploitation insults more than it instructs by combining a pointless and underdeveloped plot with an unending selection of homosexual stereotypes I thought were long since consigned to the trash heap ... Particularly offensive is the unbelievable — and undocumented — contention that homosexuality is some sort of adolescent aberration that a drunken roll in the hay will cure."[6] Scott Meek wrote in The Monthly Film Bulletin, "Despite the initial liberal façade with which it presents the central couple's homosexuality, the script remains problematic in its attitudes to homosexuality and heterosexuality, both of which can be seen as unsatisfactory elements in the characters' relationships ... Ultimately, the 'difference' of the story looks like an attempt to be all things (sexually, as it were) to all people, and as such likely to please very few."[7]

Time Out Film Guide derides A Different Story as a "glossily persuasive film which presents its 'real' gays as neurotics or gangsters, and offers us so many clichés about role reversal, marriage and pregnancy that it makes An Unmarried Woman look like an intelligent study of divorce."[8]

Some gay rights groups protested the stereotyped depiction of homosexuals in the film and their ability to convert to heterosexuality. Gay Activists Alliance circulated a letter speaking out against the film.[1][9] Gay Left, a journal of gay rights and socialism, criticized A Different Story as another example of the gay films of the late 1970s which presented stereotyped homosexuals. "It often seems that the wider the commercial audience appeal is meant to be, the more objectionable are the gay characters and relationships portrayed. The superficially 'liberal' approach of a film such as A Different Story is ultimately just as negative about gay sexuality."[10] Janet Maslin's original review elaborates: "The movie's use of [Albert and Stella's] homosexuality is indeed exploitative, insensitive, and offensive in a variety of ways. Even worse, it is unconvincing ... Albert's homosexuality is nothing but a gimmick, something for the screenplay to coax him out of."[1]

• Hadleigh, Boze. The lavender screen: the gay and lesbian films: their stars, makers, characters, and critics. Secaucus, N.J: Carol Pub. Group; 1993. Chapter 24.