The time had come when enough of my friends and random people with whom I exchange film lists convinced me to see all twenty-two chapters of R. Kelly’s hiphopera saga, Trapped in the Closet. Now that I try to describe the film, it brings me back to my initial internet search for a synopsis. On imdb, Rotten Tomatoes, and even Netflix there’s really no decent summary of what goes on in these two oh-so-hyped hours. But now that I have seen it, I know exactly why.
Trapped in the Closet is this amalgamation of queer (and when I say queer, I mean it in both the general and queer theory senses) relations, where everyone – with the exception of his Highness R. Kelly – is somehow involved in an affair, in drugs, in crime, in guns, or in cherry pie. There are so many twists and turns in this plot there’s no palatable sane way to describe it. The only sure thing in the film is Mr. Man R. Kelly. As Paul Reinsch has noted, his presence in every scene, the use of no other narrating voice than his (even on the directory’s commentary), and that fact that he is the only one uninvolved (at least directly) in some perversion of life, make him stand out as the ultimate symbol of narcissism.
That said – and I feel awful saying it - but this hour and a half of my life was pretty laugh-saturated. Another guilty pleasure that really defies any rating system, go see it and find out what all the hype is about.
