FREEHELD

3.5 stars (out of 5)

This dramatic true story from director Peter Sollett is weighed down a little by its source material, has obvious budgetary constraints and features a tendency to resort to slightly awkward speechifying, and yet the lead performances from Julianne Moore and Ellen Page are so strong it doesn’t really matter, and audiences will be moved anyway.

It’s 2002 and we meet New Jersey Police Detective Laurel Hester (Moore), whose illustrious career, she rightly believes, would have been compromised if her blokey workmates had known she was gay. When she meets Pennsylvanian mechanic Stacie Andree (Page), there is an immediate attraction, and while Hester is concerned about the considerable age difference, the two are soon deeply in love and eventually buy a house together (“Look out! Here come the lesbians!”, Page mutters as she approaches the prim real estate agent).

However (and no spoilers necessary), Hester is diagnosed with cancer (cue some very tough emotions and Moore looking great with a bald head) and surely has little time left, but when she tries to have her pension transferred to Stacie in the event of her death, she’s informed that Stacie is “not family”. And this is where gay activists become tirelessly involved, as led by the seriously queeny Steven Goldstein (Steve Carell, although it was nearly Zach Galifianakis).

With Moore and Page strongly backed up by Michael Shannon (in a far less scary performance than usual) as Hester’s work partner Dane Wells and Carell, who doesn’t overact no matter how ‘big’ his Steven gets, this has been read as a pro-same-sex-marriage ‘Issue Movie’ but, like Laurel insists, it’s actually all about equality. Or maybe just love.