Freeheld, the civil rights drama based on the Oscar-winning documentary short of the same name, hasn't made an impact at the box office or with critics but it really should've been featured on The Film Experience of all places. We apologize for the delay but better late than never... especially when it involves dying wishes!
First a wee bit of background: Autospell keeps trying to change the title to "Freehold". For what it's worth the Freeholders, a local county governing board, are the antagonists of the picture. They're a group of men who deny local hero cop Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore) her dying wish that her pension go to her domestic partner Stacie Andree (Ellen Page) when she dies. The only thing that keeps the Freeholders in the human realm and away from cartoon moustache-twirling is Bryan Kelder (Josh Charles), the most conflicted of them who doesn't see what the big deal is about granting her wish but also isn't conflicted enough to put his career on the line and he's running for a bigger office soon. The boards refusal stirs up a firestorm of activism in her home county in New Jersey
Here are a handful of thoughts on the movie...
It's Domestic Partnership Notarizing Day. Very romantic
• Sadly the movie doesn't really work, despite the signifant talents involved. It's hard to quite put a finger on why but it's almost like there's a wet blanket smothering it. Though Peter Sollett showed lively attitude and promise behind the camera before in his first two undervalued pictures (Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) this picture feels more like a Rodrigo García style movie (Mother & Child, Albert Nobbs) in that the heart is obviously in the right place but the film itself feels slightly narcotized by its own devotion to Important Themes and Sobering Emotion. Freeheld is very low key throughout even when it needs to raise temperatures. I haven't seen the documentary but some of that stubbornness to really engage seems to stem from the couple at the center. Both Stacie and Laurel are low key gals. They're soft spoken. They're apolitical. They don't like attention. In one of the stronger scenes in bed together they talk about their goals in life: a house, a dog, a life partner. That's it! It's touchingly intimate and blue collar real but it doesn't make for great movie drama exactly. And it's harder to naturally root for people who don't want to get involved in politics in a political movie.
• Hollywood has a rich ironically conservative history of lionizing progressive civil rights triumphs of The Past i.e. when it's safe to do so, after everyone agrees that that fight was heroic and the tide of public opinion has long since declared the legal victors the moral victors as well. It'd be nice if they would make pictures that could make a difference in The Now. Freeheld was not going to be one of those Past Triumphs pictures. It was in development long before the tide turned for gay marriage and long before the Supreme Court ruling. It surely would have had more pizzazz, given the reluctant homebody souls of its heroine, if the electricity could have come from inside the theater. If the stakes still felt as high and injustice still seemed barely avoidable to the audience.
• The Cast Pt 1. I know this wasn't supposed to be my takeaway but damn that Michael Shannon is a great actor. He's pitch perfect as Stacee's longtime partner at work. Detective Wells is a regular guy who, one senses, has never thought about LGBT rights for a split second in his life but who is fiercely loyal and doesn't like bullies or injustice. In fact most of the actors in their small precinct office inhabit their small roles well, especially Gabriel Luna and Skip Skudduth. Steve Carell as a local queer activist is playing a big "character," sure, but because the movie is so otherwise timid his work verges on hilbillly Zelweggerian -- "I'm here to liven up this dull prestige flick, y'all!"
• The Cast Pt 2. Julianne and Ellen are touching, especially when cancer hits. But in the first half of the picture when you need to feel the romance, they're stiffer than usual without a large range of moods to their characterizations; was it the weight of the noble intent? They're something missing at the center of the picture as much as we hate to say it, being true fans of both actresses. The movie comes more alive in the group scenes when their natural reclusiveness has friction with friends, family, doctors, coworkers and Freeholders.
• How did Luke Grimes get cast in another gay role (he plays one of the cops) so soon after that True Blood recasting debacle when he was rumored to have been replaced because he objected to doing love scenes with another man? Shouldn't these parts be off limits to him now?
• Is it weird that I needed more from the dog and house? Stacee and Laurel get a dog, as per their dream, halfway through the picture. But he only really gets cutaways a couple of times. Some lighter touches in their home life scene, some idiosyncratic personality to the movie, would have gone a long way to selling the symbol of the house that Stacee & Laurel fear losing.
Ellen & Julianne are both wonderful in their big speech scenes.
• Freeheld has a noble heart and you will probably tear up watching it ... the last couple of scenes are by far the movie's best and it sure does help to end well.
Grade: B-/C+
Oscar Chances: Negligible. Though it has all the elements being a message movie that's tearjerking and filled with prestige actors, even if the reviews were great (they aren't) the dire box office would kill it.