If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets to answer that question in a very real way. After his eccentric teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play's magical, purple love-pansy. Armed with the pansy, Timothy's spirit soars as he puckishly imposes anew reality by turning much of his narrow-minded town gay, beginning with the rugby-jock of his dreams. Ensnaring family, friends and enemies in this comic chaos, Timothy forces them to walk a mile in his musical shoes. The course of true love never did run smooth, but by the end of this moving musical comedy of errors, the bumpy ride comes to a heartfelt conclusion. With vibrant imagery, a first-rate ensemble

In Were the World Mine, the lovelorn lunacy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream spreads through an all-boys school and the town beyond when the gay boy playing Puck discovers a love potion just like that of the play. Timothy (Tanner Cohen) resists being cast as the fairy, but the mystical drama teacher Ms. Tebbit (Wendy Robie, Twin Peaks) persists because of his lovely singing voice. The words of Shakespeare seize upon Timothy’s mind and lead him to create a love potion--which he uses to capture the heart of the school’s star rugby player, but also to make everyone see the world through his eyes. Soon the rugby coach is pursuing the school principal, the principal’s wife swoons for Timothy’s mother, and the school jocks are prancing around like ballerinas. Were the World Mine is punctuated here and there with techno ballads and languorous, glittery fantasies, but it’s not exactly a musical--the songs are only vaguely woven into the story, and just when the action should accelerate everything turns a bit ponderous. Nonetheless there’s a great deal of charm (and half-dressed young men) to be found in Were the World Mine. The contrast between the kitchen-sink realism of Timothy’s real life and his LaChapelle-esque daydreams gives the movie an engaging dynamic. The cast is attractive and likable, particularly Zelda Williams as a bohemian friend of Timothy’s and Judy McLane as his mother.