Most of us are carrying around an extra few pounds, and I’m not talking about that accumulation of squish when you button up those 34-inch jeans. 

It’s called baggage. It accumulates with age, a buildup of bad scenes, unfortunate circumstances—you get a little more added to your personal pile each time life bites you in the ass. Life never bites you in the ass, you say? Bitch, please. 

Some of us have matching baggy sacs of exhaustion that decorate the underneath of our eyes.

If you’re over 40 and single, trying to hide the baggage by over-accessorizing or using loads of makeup seems absurd. Wouldn’t it be easier to just slap it all up on the counter from the outset and hope it doesn’t end budding romantic conversations? Thing is, it will sometimes. 

Baggage has loomed heavy over the Grumpy one (and under his eyes) for the last month or so, in part because of a recent breakup. It wasn’t wretched and contentious, nor was it hateful or brimming with nasty, stinging rhetoric. It was sad, actually. But it also felt necessary. There was a gnawing anxiety on both sides that had begun doing damage to the chemistry that once existed, feeding itself in the growing space between us. We both had some baggage coming into the situation, and now we walk away with matching new overnight cases to add to our respective assortments.

Looking over the men I meet in my age group, there’s plenty more baggage to sift through. I wish I could start conversations with prospective dates by flatly telling them that pretending theirs doesn’t exist isn’t synonymous with progress or acceptance. Rather, it’s regressive. But it’s also not great first-date fodder and, just like with the under-eye puff, most would rather see what they can do with a false smile and a touch of concealer.

It’s rare to meet a 20-something who’s been all through it, but after 40 things are very different. We have fetishes we’re embarrassed by, or we’ve become so involved in satisfying them that there’s little chance of being content with so-called “domestic intimacy.” Our hearts have been in so many hit-and-runs that they no longer function properly when presented with genuine affection. Some of us have lived through the death of a partner. Perhaps that’s the most enduring, unshakable baggage of all—an empty space that carries great weight.

Retake, a newly released film from Breaking Glass that’s written, directed, and produced by Nick Corporon, examines the baggage that death leaves from an engaging viewpoint while asking some important questions about dealing with loss and the equation between loss and internalized failure. 

Salt-n-pepper hottie Tuc Watkins (Desperate Housewives, One Life to Live) is Jonathan, a buttoned up, middle-aged businessman who flies into San Francisco and picks up a hustler for some seemingly innocuous role-playing. When the first one (played by Kit Williamson from Mad Men) doesn’t work out, he finds another. At first, the requests seem tame—to wear a certain cologne and a black wig, maybe pose for a Polaroid. But when there’s combustible sexual chemistry with the second trick, he makes the full pitch: Come with me for a three-day road trip to the Grand Canyon, during which you will assume another identity. 

The trick, Adam—played by Devon Graye (Dexter, AHS)—reluctantly accepts the lucrative offer and off the pair go, barreling into the desert in a zippy, rented Dodge Charger. Jonathan is clear from the start that he doesn’t want to deviate from the script. The identity he asks Adam to assume is that of someone named Brandon, and it’s more than just a name; there’s clothing involved, a haircut, and a temperament. And lots more Polaroids. 

There are moments of bliss and intimacy that mimic those of a deeply involved couple, but when the fourth wall comes down for a minute here and there, Jonathan is clear about the trip being nothing more than a role-playing exercise that he’s commissioned, whereas Adam seems more emotionally conflicted about what the whole interaction means. 

He follows his curiosity down the rabbit hole, snooping through Jonathan’s belongings and discovering that Brandon is dead. The road trip is a reenactment, a do-over. One of many, it turns out. But the most revealing fact of all is that, despite this, Jonathan has yet to make it to the Grand Canyon. The implication is that even though he has multiple sets of Polaroids with different years marked on them—sets of photos based on the original ones taken of Brandon—none of the subsequent attempts have worked out, either. None of the hustlers have seen the road trip all the way through. They haven’t been able to keep up the façade. 

Brandon died of a drug overdose in a motel bathroom on the way to Arizona. The original trip was, as Jonathan describes it during an emotional breakdown, meant “to fix you.” The baggage that remains is massive, negative space. Unfinished business. A void.

I was recently chatting with someone I think of as an academic, and they were describing an aspect of the human condition that’s perpetually striving for completion. Not so much in the “he completes me” way, but in the ‘cross-it-off-the-to-do-list” way. There’s actually a scientific correlation, maybe even a release of dopamine (for those of us who have fully-functioning brain chemistry) when we reach a level of completion. In the most base way, it’s part of what drives us to complete levels of video games and plays a part in binge-watching television. There’s a real physiological reward. 

The conversation reminded me of a therapy session years ago when a doctor explained to me that we’re programmed to seek satisfying outcomes. When they’re not achieved, we can sometimes get stuck in patterns of reenactment. It’s an explanation for adults that keep going back to unhealthy relationships that recreate old hurts. They’re looking to get it right once and for all. In my case, the doctor was explaining my previous addiction to stimulant drugs and the anxiety they produced once the high faded. As someone who hasn’t always handled stress well, perhaps repeatedly putting myself in a heightened state of paranoia was my way of trying to “get it right.” It didn’t work, but I kept trying for years. His explanation gave meaning (beyond the fact of addiction) to something baffling and nonsensical. Understanding it has helped diffuse the pattern, at least to some degree. 

Jonathan is stuck in a similar pattern, and until he gets it right, he can’t move on. Retake is convincingly acted and well-paced. It frames an intriguing, human psychological flaw that, while certainly applicable to folks of all preferences, might speak a little louder to gay men. 

I’ve written about it before, how my first substantial same-sex relationship was with a man who was HIV+. It was during the pre-Protease early 1990s, and I spent a lot of time (at the ripe age of 23) wondering what my life would be like after he was gone. He’s still alive. Although I was spared that awful outcome, I sometimes find myself recreating some of the dynamics between us with other people, attempting to right old wrongs, to find completion. It’s part of my baggage. I’m stuck with it. We all are. 

Retake is available January 10 on VOD/DVD formats.