A friend of mine got me to see this film. He said he was worried that I would find this film sad. Actually, I didn't find the film itself sad. I found the film to be boring, badly acted, and not very cohesive. What's sad is that a film with a great story idea fails to deliver.Problem #1: the lead character, Tim, the one that wants to take the pill to be straight. Tim is a self-loathing gay man in the beginning, middle, and end of the film. He has a decent job, some devoted friends, and an unrequited crush on a new guy (Matt) with questionable sexual orientation. When Matt brings a bigoted female companion to Tim's B'day party, upsetting Tim, Tim announces that he's going along with the procedure, his friends are horrified (can you blame them?), he takes the pill, and...what happens? He hits on his female co-worker then coldly ditches her. He hits on a woman at a café. He starts dating a blonde chick. He rebuffs his old friends and co-workers. One friend attempts suicide because of Tim's rejection. Meanwhile, he's still self-loathing and still has gay mannerisms. So basically, this pill just gets you to sleep with women and become cold and heartless, but you still retain the self-loathing gay mannerisms you had to begin with. And along the way, he pops more and more of these pills (he's suppose to take, I believe, one a day) and by the end of the film, he loses all sexual arousal for both sexes, and the doctors that got him in this mess in the first place don't know why it happened, how long it will last, will it be permanent, etc. We haven't found a cure for cancer or AIDS, but these docs found a way to make gays straight temporarily and get them to lose their arousal for both sexes along the way. So much for a miracle pill. Tim should've taken a personality pill. There's nothing likable nor sympathetic about Tim at all. Instead of feeling sad for Tim, you feel like he got what he deserved for becoming an human guinea pig.Problem #2: The unrequited crush, Matt. In the beginning, his orientation is a big question mark. He brings a girlfriend to Tim's party, upsetting Tim and inspiring him to take the pills in the first place. Along the way, Matt asks another co-worker Joey why Joey acts "like that" (out and proud). A gay man would never, ever ask such a question to another gay man. At the end when Matt kisses Tim, it felt so forced. Did Matt all of a sudden take a gay pill? Throughout the film, you never got the sense that Matt was gay at all. The end felt tacked on at the last minute, as if to give Tim what he always wanted but now can't get.In a nutshell, I'll take a Jagged Little Pill over a Hard Pill any day.

Hapless 33-year-old gay man with only a few friends volunteers to take a new drug which promises to make him heterosexual. The trouble with this premise is, the central character (inhibited and wounded) would be unhappy in any sexual environment, either with a woman or another man. Writer-director John Baumgartner doesn't seem to take this into consideration, and so puts our hero into uncomfortable scenes such as the one where he gets intimate with a female co-worker (who is seen as desperate and deluded). Low-budget and self-conscious, the picture doesn't even have the energy to hint at any intriguing ideas other than straight-vs.-gay. Baumgartner sees the casual indifference of the bar crowds and gives us a glimpse of the man's office job and his lonely life, but the main issue ("What would life be like if I were straight?") is too facile and obvious as a story-hook. Why not make the guy a bigot who is forced to take a gay pill? The point made here is strictly a dead-end one, made even worse by one-dimensional people who don't merit much interest. * from ****

This movie was a free Logo offering on my Comcast On-Demand that I happened to pick at random. What a lucky choice I made. It's hard for me to convey concisely how this movie moved me. As another commenter mentioned, it is a low-budget type film but that makes this even more powerful and poignant. What is great about this film is that it pulls no punches and lays its messages out on the line. The main character is a plain but still attractive guy that is often at the mercy of the vanity and cruelty of the gay world. This movie blows the lid off the Will & Jack stereotype that all gay guys are nice, fun, and cute - the reality for many guys like myself is not always so pleasant. The main character constantly falls for the wrong (straight/confused) guys that often use him intentionally or not. It is this frustration and unhappiness that drives him to consider taking a pill that allegedly will make him straight. The great thing about this film is that none of the characters are portrayed as perfect - they're portrayed as human.A gay guy who has experienced rejection and ridicule by "his own kind" must see this movie as an epiphany of sorts. Even better, someone who may have a distorted picture of what the "gay lifestyle" is should see this movie - this IS the reality for the average gay guy. We're not all depressed like this but it blows the lid off stereotypes like nothing I've ever seen. Please, please see this jewel of a movie.

Caught this film on cable TV by chance and, by waiting through the first thirty minutes for something interesting to develop, enjoyed it thoroughly.At first glance or upon first contemplating the underlying notion that Tim's angst was perhaps the result of some sort of malady for which there was a "cure," the unsuspecting viewer is drawn into a plot that seems thin but then becomes increasingly complex as new characters enter on the scene. What holds this together so well are clever asides in which one is clued into what's really happening or what the characters are really thinking. While that device may seem trite or forced in other films, it works well in this one.What I liked best about this "hard pill" was how believable seemingly oddball characters could be rendered without much bitterness or conflict, yet how engaging the plot could be -- wondering all the while how things would turn out. The ending was maybe a little too predictable based on early adumbration, but fine acting from a cast of virtual unknowns carries the day.I suppose there is no need to label these comments as containing a true "spoiler," but I need to mention that one leaves this movie with a feeling that everyone received their just deserts.No dessert needed.