The 1970s brought about many paradigm shifts in cinema, prominent among them were those exemplified in Rocky and Saturday Night Fever. Sylvester Stallone defied the studio by insisting on starring in the little $1 million indie he wrote and, despite the prevailing wisdom, the film earned $225 million and won the Best Picture Oscar. With Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta, a television sitcom actor at the time, accomplished the unthinkable by making the leap to feature films, launching a major career, and cementing the movie as truly iconic.
Now, fifty years later, I believe we have yet another paradigm shift with Test, the feature debut of director Sam McConnell, written by and starring Brock Yurich. This semi-autobiographical story of a small-town Ohio bodybuilder who comes to terms with his sexuality carries the distinct DNA of its forebears while carving out, in my opinion, a much rawer, more specifically detailed depth of feeling. Although I saw the film at OutfestNext, the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ film festival, it’s very easy to label this as “good for a gay film”. No, this is a truly great film no matter which category you feel it belongs and is easily one of the best of 2026. Light some sage, rub some crystals and pray for distribution!
Yurich stars as Eddie, an amateur bodybuilder who struggles to get his pro card. Managed by his alcoholic and desperately lonely mother, Joanne (a career best performance from Tammy Blanchard), the film begins with Joanne spray-tanning her son in preparation for a contest. The close-ups of his body getting slathered in coats of the solution give way to a hilarious shot of Yurich clad only in a modesty sock as Mom continues to spritz away. In just one shot, the economical storytelling establishes their complicated relationship and tell us that there’s room for humor in this inspiring but dark movie.
To make ends meet, Eddie waits tables at a BBQ restaurant along with two co-workers, Trig (Evan Hall) who also supplies Eddie with performance enhancing drugs, and Bri (Heidi Lewandowski) who not-so-quietly crushes on him. Both actors make a meal out of their supporting performances making indelible impressions. After work, however, Eddie makes extra money as a cam boy, stripping, flexing and performing more explicit acts for gay subscribers. Clearly, Eddie isn’t as straight as we are led to believe, a hint of which also comes at an early competition in which he exchanges a briefly flirty interaction with a very handsome coach named Mike (Mike Edward). Edward is so charismatic and commanding, I can easily envision him starring in films of his own.
It’s in these early scenes you notice the authenticity and unforced naturalness of the entire film. Yurich has a sweetness to his performance, which goes a long way towards undercutting his very imposing physique. He’s so relatable in a way similar to Stallone and I could easily imagine him having a career as an action star along the lines of Alan Ritchson and the Rock, but openly gay. Move over Luke Evans, you got some competition! Hell, based on Test, I think Yurich can do anything. He’s the real deal and a clear superstar in the making.
The main cast gets rounded out by a strong performance from Paloma Garcia-Lee, who plays Eddie’s high school sweetheart Abby, who returns from a burgeoning New York career as a dancer to teach at a small local studio. Her scenes with Eddie as she teaches him ballet so he can improve his competition coordination, are among the best in the film. You feel their history immediately and her instincts and smarts come across perfectly. These moments reminded me so much of Karen Lynn Gorney’s scenes in Saturday Night Fever. In fact, you could replace all of the bodybuilding scenes with disco dance numbers and they’d overlap quite a bit. Note the framing in the final scene as one example. No matter how you take all of this in, Garcia-Lee delivers a star-making performance all of her own.
Also of note, Matthew Morrison has the unenviable task of humanizing Gregg, a homophobic pastor at the church Eddie and Joanne attend. With nary a sneer or a mustache twirl, Morrison achieves a level of benign evil, which, for me, is much more scary and impactful. I like Morrison in his villain era, as he’s definitely covered the nice guys and the musical theater leads already. I, like Yurich, am originally from Ohio, so I also loved that Morrison has a chance to participate in a film set and shot there, unlike Glee, which never felt for a second like my home state.
This leads me to discuss how there’s not a false moment to be had in Test. McConnell has an ease with the camera, knowing exactly where to place it for maximum impact without showing off. Credit also goes to cinematographer Ava Benjamin Shorr and editor John Higgins for supplying us with one memorable image after another in such a way that their interplay feels inevitable. Production design and costumes by Sonia Foltarz and Mathew Kent Lee, respectively, feel lived-in and precise. The score by Ronen Landa and the songs by the legendary Desmond Child support the authenticity so well.
As I remarked earlier, Test goes to some very dark places. The brutality of the training process, the injectable drug use (man I really hate needle shots so I covered my eyes a lot!), and the despair experienced by many of the characters doesn’t keep this from feeling like a very entertaining story. The specificity in the competition scenes, where contestants subtly elbow each other for more prominent positioning, gives you a real sense of what actually transpires. All of the sex scenes, gay and straight, carry the ache and the pain of these people. If you didn’t feel the characters, if you didn’t believe their histories, Test could have easily become a navel-gazing, unwatchable slog. Quite to the contrary, I sat up and leaned forward for its entire runtime, caring so deeply.
In a perfect world, this would get the same Oscar attention as Rocky, especially for McConnell, Yurich (acting and screenwriting like Stallone) and Blanchard. My goodness, Blanchard is so good. She clearly feels Joanne in her bones and her remarks at the OutfestNext screening brought the audience to tears as she recounted her own journey with addiction.
and Heidi Lewandowski.
It’s been quite some time since a queer-themed film has taken the box office by storm. Brokeback Mountain, Bohemian Rhapsody, Moonlight, and Green Book all did very well, but it’s been a while. The tenor of these times politically doesn’t help matters, making things feel truly scarily imperfect. So, I’m gonna put it out there that we CAN live in a perfect world and that great, galvanizing movies like Test make it feel possible.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
Test screened at OutfestNext Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Friday, July 24th, 2026. For more on the film and updates on future screenings follow on Instagram @testthefilm.
For more film reviews by Glenn Gaylord subscribe to his YouTube channel here ——> GLENN HATES EVERYTHING
Leave a Reply