In an Intro. to Mass Communications class, we students were asked to chose a movie and write a review and a critique of the movie. For this assignment I chose to critique the movie "Uncle Frank", available on Amazon Prime.
A truly beautiful, tear-jerking tale, Uncle Frank (2020) is a coming-out story for a man with his southern, conservative family. Written and directed by Alan Ball, this movie follows New York professor, Frank Bledsoe (Paul Bettany) and his niece, Beth (Sophia Lillis), an eighteen-year-old college student, as they travel back home to the south for the funeral of Frank’s father, Daddy Mac (Stephen Root).
The movie begins on a chaotic note, the whole Bledsoe family together in celebration of Daddy Mac’s birthday. Children run around, loud and energetic, getting on the nerves of the older relatives. The adults sit around smoking, cooking, talking amongst themselves, and shoo the children, including Beth, at that point known as Betsy to her family, outside and out of the way. Beth finds comfort in sitting on the porch with her Uncle Frank, who was her favorite relative, since he was the only one who saw her as a person and not just a child. He was kind and intelligent, and they got along well.
Three years pass in the movie and Beth is starting college in New York where Uncle Frank teaches. Sneaking to a party of her Uncle’s, Beth finds out that her Uncle is homosexual, and meets his boyfriend of 10 years, Walid. She is shocked, but she does not think hardly any differently of him. The day after the party they receive a call that Daddy Mac has died. Since Beth’s mother, Kitty (Judy Greer), doesn’t want Beth to fly, Uncle Frank hesitantly agrees to drive with her home to attend the funeral, but makes Walid agree to stay home. Like any predictable story, of course Walid follows them.
On the trip home, Uncle Frank begins to have flashbacks remembering his first love, at sixteen years old, Sam (Michael Perez), and how Daddy Mac had discovered them together and forbidden their relationship, as it was a “sickness”. Frank had broken up with Sam, then, for fear of being disowned, or killed, by his father, and Sam, distraught, drowned himself in the lake that they had spent a lot of their time together in. Sam’s death is something that has always haunted Frank.
After the funeral, a lawyer reads the will to the family, in which Daddy Mac left sums of money to his wife and each of his children, except for Frank. Instead, and the lawyer reads this aloud to them all, Daddy Mac wrote that he left “nothing but disgust for the perversion he engages in with other men and the shame that he carries my name”. Frank flees, drunk, and goes to the lake. Beth rushes to get Walid and they both go to the lake together, where they find Frank’s tux and necklace that he never takes off, on the edge of the dock, but see Frank nowhere. Thinking Frank has drowned himself in grief and humiliation, Beth and Walid return solemnly to the motel. Later, Frank returns, saying he had just been taking a swim, and a fight breaks out between Frank and Walid. Frank leaves again and goes to the cemetery to visit Sam’s grave. Walid and Beth go after him and Frank agrees to be brave and see his family again, asking Walid to come with him.
Frank’s younger brother, Mike (Steven Zahn), hugs him and tells him, “Two words: no problem.” Frank’s sister, Neva (Jane McNeill), who has known for a long time about Frank and Walid, is thrilled to meet Walid finally (though, her husband is clearly uncomfortable). The rest of the family is somewhat accepting, except for Aunt Butch (Lois Smith), who tells him that he is going to Hell, to which he responds calmly that he knows that is the best that she can say. The movie ends beautifully with the whole family sitting together outside, laughing and smiling, happy, and Beth says that she feels like that is exactly where they are supposed to be.
While the movie is full of many typical clichés in the cinema universe, especially those concerning the LGBTQ+ community (i.e., tragedy/death in LGBTQ+ characters, homophobia), I found that I really enjoyed the movie, and the way that it was told. Paul Bettany played Frank believably, and wonderfully, and I always love to see Sophia Lillis in a movie. The movie, ending instead of on a sad note for Uncle Frank, ends with happiness, and acceptance. His family, mostly, accepts Frank for who he is, as well as Walid, as we see him laughing and chatting along with the rest of the Bledsoe family. All in all, the movie was very entertaining, heart-wrenching and heart-warming alike, albeit occasionally saccharine (I don’t see anything wrong with a little of this here and there, however). While the clichés do exist within this movie, and the typical southern family being one of the most major ones, it is a glimpse into the reality of many LGBTQ+ members, as these families and settings do exist, so it gives a good representation and provides a little hope, or nudge, into the direction that not all families are as unaccepting and bigoted as they may originally appear.
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