Fruit Fly is a 2009 musical that PJ and I recently watched on Netflix. It stars L.A. Renigan as Bethesda, a Filipina performance artist who has just moved to San Francisco. Her performance art is about her search for her birth parents, whom she has sought out after her adoptive parents’ death. Her biological father is now also dead, but no one knows what has become of her mother. She has found a room for six months in an apartment building, and the film follows her attempts to stage her performance piece while getting to know her new roommates. Here’s the trailer:

Fruit Fly is a fun, entertaining movie. PJ and I both really enjoyed it.

Part of what I liked it about is its experimental nature. It’s not a traditional musical in which the characters break into song to sing about their emotions or falling love or stuff like that. These characters do break into song, but their songs are about public transportation, workshopping your performance piece, being a fag hag, or meeting another versatile bottom. In other words, this is a musical about urban, racial, gender, and queer identities.

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