‘Our Son’ Review: A Moving, Turbulent Gay Marriage Story With Heart And Humor – Tribeca Film Festival
10.06.2023 - 20:53
/ deadline.com
“How do people do this?” asks well-to-do New York book publisher Nicky (Luke Evans) in a state of exasperation. Nicky is in the thick of a bitter custody battle for his eight-year-old son Owen (Christopher Woodley), after Gabriel (Billy Porter), his partner of 13 years, has decided to call time on their relationship. It’s a well-worn premise in mainstream cinema — essayed most recently by Noah Baumbach’s acerbic Marriage Story, and still portrayed most famously in Robert Benton’s 1979 weepie Kramer vs. Kramer — but gay cinema has been slow to tackle the issue. With his second movie, the follow-up to the 2018 sci-fi Jonathan, Bill Oliver corrects that oversight with a beautifully judged human drama that dissects a dying marriage with humor and intelligence, drawing out an especially open and moving performance from Porter.
The most noticeable thing about Oliver’s film, which he co-scripted with regular collaborator Peter Nickowitz, is the sense of calm that prevails, to the extent that the first rift comes seemingly out of nowhere. Returning from a friend’s dinner party, where Nicky accuses Gabriel of mollycoddling Owen, Gabriel reveals that he has met someone else, someone he has “real feelings” for. Stunned, Nicky decides to sleep on it, and the next day Gabriel meets his lover, Will, for sex, as he has been doing on the sly for the last few months. This time, though, Gabriel declares his true feelings, and Will, unwilling to make himself emotionally available to a married man, ends the relationship.
The genie, however, is out of the bottle, and Gabriel can’t put it back: Nicky just isn’t there for him anymore. “You don’t get it,” he says. “You don’t get how lonely I’ve been. I wanted a family. I got Owen — but I
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