Say “Regular Guy” One More Time: The Infuriating Genius Of Vincente Minnelli’s ‘Tea And Sympathy’

Warner Archive provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this article. The opinions I share are my own.

Tom (John Kerr) doesn’t want to get a crew cut. He doesn’t want to exit the school play just because the role he’s been given requires him to wear a dress, and he doesn’t want to practice walking because his classmates have decided he’s been walking wrong his whole life, yet in Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy (1956), Tom is the one who’s being unreasonable. His teachers and classmates are obsessed with him, but Tom is the one who needs to change.

That’s not what Minnelli’s film is really saying, of course. If it were, it would be an excruciating watch instead of “merely” rage-inducing. The reason Tea and Sympathy can be cathartic and confirming today, though, is the film is clearly on Tom’s (and, by extension, Mrs. Reynolds’) side.

Mrs. Reynolds (Deborah Kerr) is the wife of the coach (Leif Erickson) and housemaster of the building where Tom is staying at college. She also can’t stand how the students and adults, like her husband, are treating Tom and tries to intervene. It’s a completely reactionary performance, as Minnelli keeps Deborah Kerr in the foreground. The camera follows her, as she may leave the room, but is always listening or standing by an open window so she can overhear what’s being said. It’s all about playing the part of the obedient wife, but her face is one giant tell — Minnelli just makes sure viewers are watching it.

Robert Anderson adapted his own stage play, and the script’s extremely strong, especially Tom’s attempts at rebellion. It’s not about loud defiance but stalling and buying time so his father (Edward Andrews) doesn’t realise his commands are being ignored. It’s a film that both shows how ridiculous these people are acting (like when Tom forces his roommate (Darryl Hickman) to try and defend his picking apart of Tom’s walk) while not dismissing the real toll this smear campaign is having on Tom’s mental health.

Released the same year as Don Siegel‘s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Tea and Sympathy would make a terrifying double feature — a sci-fi take on pod people next to a film where humans are just as capable as aliens of pushing a conformative agenda.

Both of the Kerrs and Erickson reprised their roles from the Broadway production for the film. Where the play was more explicit about the rumors around Tom being about his sexuality, the production code made it so the film leaves it as gay subtext. There’s an unintentional subversive side to that censorship, though, because if Tom isn’t gay in this version of the story than that means these characters have to face the reality that straight men can like sewing, too — that their very narrow ideas of what it means to be a “regular guy” are complete fabrications and that everyone has masculine and feminine sides. The gender binary is a lie that movies have been exposing since the 1950s. The proof is in Tea and Sympathy.

Warner Archive’s Blu-ray comes with a random Tom and Jerry cartoon about an escaped dancing bear (“Down Beat Bear”). Until now, Tea and Sympathy has been my most wished for Blu-ray upgrade. Please pick up this disc from Warner Archive. It’s available to purchase from Movie Zyng.