The two easily identifiable factors that make the film such a quietly lovely one are the lead actors, Julianne Moore as Laurel and Ellen Page as Stacie. It’s a touching performance, right down to the haunted eyes, the gaunt, ashen face and the post-chemo hair loss.
Advertisement
Moore plays Laurel Hester, a respected 23-year veteran of the force, first seen in 2002 with a faintly ridiculous blonde Farrah flip.
When Andree takes to the stand, late in the film, to make a passionate plea for her partner’s request, it fails to emotionally register.
But the pedestrian direction by Peter Sollett (“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist“) is strictly Lifetime-movie caliber, shameless in milking Laurel’s plight for every last tear. In the field with her longtime partner (Michael Shannon), she’s a ruthless workaholic, busting drug dealers in ambitious stings and getting dusted up on more than one equation. The old joke about what a lesbian brings on a second date (a U-Haul truck) applies here to their under-developed relationship. I pointed out that Monday would be one year since Toronto Film Festival debuted the then-unseen and unsold movie, Still Alice. Stacie, in particular, is thinly drawn. “You hope that these films take the “other”, the different, and make it feel the same”. But the detective has the pragmatism of someone accustomed to studying facts. When Laurel is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she risks coming out of the closet to ask the county commissioners (Freeholders) to grant her police pension to Stacie when she dies (as would happen automatically for any heterosexual, married couple), so Stacie can afford to stay in their home. But the freeholders block it, despite Josh Charles as the lone voice of reason and compassion on the board. “She really did a attractive job portraying that quality of Stacie’s, that gentleness and reticence and the fierceness of her love for (Laurel) as well”. But truth be told, the developments follow a predictable path and the battleground of municipal politics is low on sparks.
“There are many states in America where you can get fired for being gay or trans or denied housing, you have the religious liberty argument right now that has always been used throughout history to justify discrimination, and the point is our society is still homophobic and transphobic”, says Page.
Their chemistry is undeniable, but unfortunately for the pair, Freeheld doesn’t seem interested in capturing it. Soon after they partner up Nyswaner’s screenplay oddly shifts much of the focus over to Hester’s colleagues, who slowly come to terms with her sexuality, and Steve Goldstein (Steve Carell), a flamboyant Garden State LGBT activist who helps the women fight for their cause.
Advertisement
“The gay male community had Philadelphia, but female couples have not had this movie”. At times, Freeheld feels less like a drama than a legal hearing that’s been relocated to a movie theater, with the viewers cast as the jurors.
