How Queer Was 'Vision Quest'?
A 40th-anniversary screening of the wrestling drama reveals the lost character arc of handsy Lemon-Pie Guy
March 15, 2025
Matthew Modine has been making personal appearances at 40th-anniversary screenings of the beloved wrestling drama Vision Quest. As hard as it is to believe, the mostly sweet coming-of-age film, featuring a showy cameo by then-newcomer Madonna as a nightclub singer — and one of the best soundtracks of the ‘80s — was shot in late 1983 and was released February 15, 1985.
The film was a box-office disappointment at the time, one of those movies we all saw foisted on us at Blockbuster for years. But as Modine pointed out Thursday at a sold-out NYC screening at the Paris Theater, even a classic like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) was a dud when it first dropped — and has only risen in the estimation of fans and critics ever since.
Fun fact: It’s a Wonderful Life was slightly closer in release to Vision Quest than Vision Quest is to this week’s screening!
What makes Vision Quest work after 40 years? I think it works because it’s played, dramatically speaking, straight, which isn’t to say it is devoid of queerness.
Adapted by Darryl Ponicsan from Terry Davis’s 1979 novel of the same name, the Harold Becker-directed film admirably resists some ‘80s indulgences, its potential cheese factor (in spite of a few half-shirts) cut considerably by Modine’s sensitive portrayal of 18-year-old high school senior Louden Swain, who decides he wants to drop two weight classes to 168 lbs. in order to take on his state’s most feared competitor, Shute (Frank Jasper).
Complicating his efforts, his body is nearly on the verge of surrendering to his crash diet and ruthless workouts. A distraction arrives in the form of tough-talking 21-year-old Carla (Linda Fiorentino) — she’s from New Jersey, she’s painfully hot and a broken-down car (she’s en route to California to be an artist, even though NYC had been in her backyard) means she is crashing at the Swain residence.
Louden’s mom is out of the picture, but it isn’t his dad (Ronny Cox) Carla needs to fend off, but a very smitten and very hormonal Louden, who also happens to be a virgin. (In real life, Modine was 24 and married at the time of filming and Fiorentino at least 25.) Louden follows Carla around like a puppy dog, writes a censored story for the school newspaper on the clitoris and openly discusses his 24/7 boner with his kind-hearted English teacher (Harold Sylvester).
It’s all very innocent, but rarely dopey (okay, references to “cooze” elicited giggles), even if there are elements that don’t quite work — Louden’s wrestling teammate Kuch (Michael Schoeffling, a teen dream remembered for 1984’s Sixteen Candles) poses as Native American to mask an abusive home life (“A lotta people ain’t Indians,” Louden helpfully offers); Louden loses his virginity to Carla on an improbable overnight trip to visit his off-grid grandpa (Roberts Blossom) that requires a sleepover in a tent; and there is no universe in which Modine and Jasper are the same weight or evenly matched on the mat.
Still, the performances, cinematography and situations are extremely well-observed, giving it an occasionally timeless quality that you’d be hard-pressed to location in another well-liked 1985 teen flick, Teen Wolf.
But one thing that took me by surprise was the film’s interesting queer air. Yes, there are homoerotic wresting moments — a guy on all fours, another guy gently resting his head on his back, a sweaty tussle, and let’s not forget Modine’s rear-nude weigh-in — but there’s a bit more there, and it was intriguing to hear Modine suss it out in person.
In a very early scene in the film, Louden, who works as a bellboy in a local hotel, delivers lemon pie and coffee to man with a stack of athletic gear who is in the midst of practicing tai chi. Louden is intrigued, wondering if it could be useful in his training, but is freaked out when Lemon-Pie Guy (Ron Silverman) tried to grab his junk. He flees as politely as possible, reflexively doing push-ups in the hall, a rather ingenious visual.
Modine explained at the Paris that he improvised the gay-panic push-ups as a reference to his previous film Streamers (1983), in which a character played by David Alan Grier tells a gay soldier, “Do some push-ups — that’ll straighten you out.”
But more interestingly, some high-end athletic shoes Lemon-Pie Guy had offered show up in Louden’s possession later in Vision Quest — so, what did we miss? Modine, after joking that Louden slept his way into the shoes, clarified that the film was originally supposed to contain a follow-up scene involving Lemon-Pie Guy, in which the salesman tells Louden he’s heard about his wrestling vision quest and wants to gift him the shoes. When Louden refuses, he insists, reassuring him, “Listen, if I was gonna pay for sex, it’d be for something a lot more sophisticated than you — take the fuckin’ shoes.”
Modine pointed out a parallel in the film that was lost when that scene was cut — Louden attempts to force sex on Carla and is told off, but of course the audience is encouraged to accept that a good person did a bad thing. Carla tells him as much, saying he’s young so is allowed to get away with doing stupid things. Modine viewed the salesman in the same way, saying the original script had painted him as not a bad guy, but as someone who did something inappropriate and was forgiven.
Though Vision Quest has some anti-queer comments that reflect the era (Louden is casually called a “fag,” there is a weird joke about one’s asshole being made into the Lincoln Tunnel), I couldn’t help but feel the intent from the missing scene, especially thanks to Modine’s open-hearted performance as Louden. For example, Louden refers to Carla as having all the qualities he likes about girls … and all the qualities he likes about guys, a remarkably candid comment for a high school jock in the ‘80s who is talking about the woman he hopes to have sex with.
Also, there is an interesting ambiguity regarding his English teacher, who Louden at first suspects is “sticking it to” Carla, with whom he has been out to dinner. Carla tells Louden she and the teacher are just friends, and her explanation feels very like how a woman might try to describe being close with a gay man. The teacher — along with every other character we have met in the movie — shows up to watch Louden attempt to defeat Shute … and he appears to be sitting with a man.
Vision Quest is not some bisexual breakthrough, and Louden even at one point worries whether he is “queer” (Carla tells him, then shows him, he shouldn’t worry so much), but I think the film does a fair job of accurately reflecting male discomfort with homosexuality in, ironically, highly homoerotic settings.
Watch most of the Q&A here:
Gay undertones aside, Vision Quest works better than ever as a stand-up-and-cheer undergo tale and touching coming-of-age portrait. Although subtler than the bombastic Rocky (1976), it apparently has a loyal cult following — the sold-out screening featured many obvious father-son duos, and many obvious wrestlers.
It was nice to see the jocks contemplating the thoughtful words of Modine, who spoke out not only for Louden’s humanity and that of his flawed friends, but for Lemon-Pie guys everywhere.⚡️
I so want to watch this movie now - i have long been a Matthew Modine fan