“The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green” can’t be accused of false advertising. This adaptation of the underground comic strip is mostly unfabulous. (See Film Notes on Page 37.) The only saving grace is the boyish appeal of most of the cast, particularly Daniel Letterle, the likable charmer at the center of Todd Graff’s enjoyable 2003 movie “Camp.”
Letterle plays the romantically self-destructive Ethan, who has no problem starting relationships, but, as soon as they threaten to be fulfilling, he escapes. When his ex-boyfriend Leo (David Monahan) decides to sell the house where they live, Ethan hatches a cockamamie plan to stop him: recruiting the worst real estate agent he can find.
This flimsy plotline also yields a flurry of farcical encounters: Ethan has come-and-go affairs with Kyle (Diego Serrano), a baseball athlete who likes Ethan to wear a catcher’s mask, and Punch (Dean Shelton), a fickle boy toy who can’t keep his eyes off the action everywhere, and Ethan also tries to redabble with Leo, who opts instead for a Republican (Scott Atkinson) named Chester.
Meant to be a lighthearted farce, the movie is more of a lackluster potboiler. First-time director George Bamber doesn’t let loose the speedy rhythms of such a form, nor does he put much spice into such well-worn archetypes as just-out-of-the-closest Kyle, log-cabin control freak Chester and a pair of avuncular transvestites (Joel Brooks and Richard Riehle) known as the Hat Sisters, who suggest community theater backups for “La Cage aux Folles.”