Saw Uncle Frank, a film about a gay uncle of a southern family in the less-tolerant time of 1973. It's a fairly touching drama which never quite reaches above being just a frothy drama, but it does involve gay people and doesn't involve AIDS, so that's nice.
The film is told from the perspective of Beth, the niece of the gay uncle. She feels ignored and taken for granted by her sprawling family. Only her quiet, gentle uncle from New York listens to her and urges her to make her own way, to embrace her own destiny. She travels to NYC for college and visits the uncle constantly. Soon his lie is exploded and his equally perfect-in-every-way boyfriend is revealed. Then the family patriarch dies and the gay uncle is called home one more time to say farewell.
The film then comes to life. It revolves around the struggle to come out or to stay closeted and let sleeping dogs lie. This is complicated by the poisonous effects of homophobia and internalized homophobia. This film deals with those issues fairly frankly without making the family come off too badly. I feel there's an element of rose-colored glasses here (it was only the 70s after all) but the focus of the film is self-destructive hatred and so it has other things on its mind than intolerance.
I enjoyed the film. Most gay films either focus on AIDS or on intolerance. These are usually proselytizing films which are pulling the heart strings of straight audiences. This one seems more focused on the gay guy and his struggles. He urged the niece to choose her own life in spite of her family's opinions, but he's not totally comfortable with the life that was forced onto him.
The film is sweet and touching, sad at parts of course, but generally interesting to watch. It's a solidly alright film about a gay guy which is something of a rarity.
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