3.5 stars (out of 5)
The latest effort from director/producer Ira Sachs is a low-key character drama that’s higher-profile than his earlier ‘queer’ pics simply as it offers a pair of stars as its central characters: John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, both of whom deliver wonderful performances as long-in-love older gents kept apart by the real estate market (a familiar story, and not just in New York, it seems).
Ben (Lithgow) and George (Molina) have been together for 39 years, and after they finally decide to tie the knot and get married, the resulting photos of the ceremony are uploaded to social media and George loses his job as a choir director at a Catholic school (if only he hadn’t come out, John Cullum’s priest seems to imply). Their resulting lack of money, especially as getting-on artist Ben rarely finds ‘inspiration’, means that they will have to sell their co-op apartment and, as they look for a new property, crash with friends and family. And while said friends and family are initially happy to take them in, thorny problems soon arise, with George living with two gay cop pals (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez) and Ben, more trickily, taking up with his nephew Elliott (Darren E Burrows). Elliott’s wife Kate (Marisa Tomei) works hard to put up with Ben’s fretful conversations, but the old man’s presence is more disruptive to Elliott and Kate’s son Joey (Charlie Tahan), who doesn’t take kindly to sharing a bedroom with Ben and becomes convinced that Ben is trying to seduce his mate Vlad (the unknown Eric Tabach outshining the better-known Burrows, Tomei and Tahan).
Despite awkward, slightly forced moments, Sachs’ film is still moving and melancholy, with Lithgow and Molina truly convincing as a suddenly star-crossed couple. And while some have claimed that this is a product of ‘Gay Cinema’ designed to make heavy political points, it isn’t really: it’s just about love.
I Wake Up Screening 