Circus of Books (2020)

Karen and Barry Mason, a fairly "square" temple-attending couple with a young family, see an opportunity to buy a struggling bookstore. That it happens to, primarily, carry gay porn doesn't faze them.

There really isn't much to this documentary other than the short synopsis above. The Masons don't judge, but neither are they really advocates for the gay community. Well, not until one of their sons comes out during college, anyway. It's just a nice little story marred continually by the rampant desire of the filmmaker (Karen and Barry's daughter) to shoehorn herself into the story. The biggest example was when she was interviewing her brother about his coming-out and she turned the camera on herself to capture her emotion about his struggle. It's not about you, Rachel.

As the credits rolled, the song playing over them was so clumsy that I joked that Rachel probably wrote it herself... and, guess what? She did! She also sang the damn thing and -- seriously -- how was no one brave enough to tell her she really shouldn't?

C