Film Review: Any Day Now

Garret Dillahunt & Alan Cumming, Any Day Now

With the recent flurry of gay rights victories—and even an inaugural nod by Obama—it can be tough to recall how incredibly homophobic the US was during the 1970s. While attitudes were becoming more liberal on many fronts, GLBT people were decades from being accepted by most of the population. Gay marriage was just about nonexistent, unless enacted in private. And 2 gay men adopting a child? Completely unheard of. Gay men were largely judged not by their character but by their sexual activity, which was condemned as “immoral.” Thus, bringing children into the picture was considered less desirable than letting them live with drug addicts or serial abusers.

Inspired by a true story, the new film Any Day Now relates the story of a gay couple who decides to fight for their right to adopt a child. This is not just any child, but an utterly charming young man with Down syndrome, who has been abandoned by his junkie mom in LA. Remarkably it was directed by a straight man (Travis Fine), who related to it via his own custody battle.

Alan Cumming plays Rudy Donatello, a musician and cabaret drag performer who’s as queeny as his partner, Paul (Garret Dillahunt), is straight-laced. Former NYer Rudy pulls no punches, and when he sees that his junkie neighbor is severely neglecting her teenage son, Marco, he steps in to take care of the boy as his own son. An attorney for the DA, Paul is initially less enthusiastic, worried about the potential legal challenges should they attempt to keep Marco permanently. The pair have no experience in caring for children, but their deep love for the boy informs their fight through the legal system.

Some of the most touching scenes in Any Day Now show the couple dropping Marco off at school for the first time, dressing him up for Halloween, and playing at the beach. It’s clear that the men’s love is allowing him to blossom from a withdrawn kid who once hid in the corner to a vibrant teenager who loves to disco dance. When they set him up in his own room, his only question is, “Can I stay forever?”

And yet… The court system and even Paul’s coworkers simply will not allow the evidence that the couple is providing a loving, happy home to suffice. The film shows the degree to which members of the system seem to delight in their prejudice against the couple, in no way grasping the role of love in this family.

Dillahunt, Cumming, and Isaac Leyva, Any Day Now

First-time actor Isaac Leyva does a stellar job of portraying young Marco, whose enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures put me frequently on the edge of tears. Alan Cumming plays what could have easily been a stereotypical role with heart and grace. His character is a fierce advocate, yet funny and tender—ironically the exact guy you’d choose for a dad, if you were allowed to pick. Paul nicely balances Rudy’s more overt theatricality with his stable, consistent, loving presence. Marco intuitively understands that they are the people who love him most in the world, and thus, recognizes where his home is. They form a band of outsiders who know all too well the hole left by being marginalized by society.

George Arthur Bloom’s script, written more than 30 years ago, feels so authentic to the times, and makes us truly grasp just how prejudiced and hate-filled that era could be, despite appearances to the contrary. Musical supervisor PJ Bloom provides an exquisite ’70s soundtrack. 

Any Day Now is one of the few gay films I’ve seen where the focus is on something other than 2 people of the same sex falling in love--as if that were unusual. Three decades ago, it was a novelty to watch a film that had gay central characters, so it didn't have to be all that complex. Maybe it’s a sign of progress than we can finally focus on other, more thought-provoking facets of gay life, such as justice in the child-adoption process. 

Currently more than a million gay people are parents, and 2-6 million more would like to be. Let’s hear it for New England, the West, and all of the 16 states in which these people are able to do so legally, without being tried as perverts. I'll spare you all the "love makes a family" bumper sticker cliches that would make for a cheese-ola ending. But see the film. Just see the film.

Deer Portland

Sylvan-Highlands
Portland, Oregon
2010

Portside Revenant

Photo by Heidi Utz

"Portside Revenant"

Portland, OR

January 2010

Qui peut dire le faux et le real

Equanimus

Photo by Heidi Utz

Into the Woods: Too Good to be True, by Benjamin Anastas

I read Too Good to be True because the arc of my own story is similar to the author’s and I wanted to see how it affected him and what conclusions he drew from it.  Ben Anastas' memoir is set in the recent past, when publishing industry economics forced many of us verbal types to watch our jobs, career paths, bank accounts, lovers, and dreams fly out the window faster than a speeding bullet. In well-crafted prose that carefully avoids predictable platitudes, Anastas shows us a writer full of promise, educated at the best MFA program in the country, who authors well-reviewed books for esteemed publishers, then falls quite suddenly into a black hole.

This is Job territory, where it’s all coming so fast and thick that it feels like a deeply personal, targeted attack: Marital strife and separation. Divorce. Abandonment. Unexpected fatherhood. Career failure. Poverty. Loss of self-confidence. And not knowing when, or if, it will ever end.

Some of the answers lie in Anastas’ past, where his parents battled  mental illness, poverty, and marital strife while embracing some of the clichés that made the ’70s so colorful. His beatnik dad, also a writer, struggled to both write and feed a family of five. His mom’s hospitalization for depression left her son with attachment scars that ultimately affected his relationships with women. The template of these painful childhood experiences have etched his current-day crises with an eerie symmetry. “How much of our lives do we write, and how much of them are written for us?” he reflects.

Though much is lost on the outside, Anastas does manage to gain the very insights into his family and past that give him a foothold toward exiting his pain. In a lovely final chapter, he begins to share his earned wisdom with his young son:        “…The fog was thick and it kept roiling in, the darkness of the woods was looming all around you. I know that you will wander in someday. It’s inevitable in this life. There are shadows there to draw you deeper than you meant to go, voices that will leave you spellbound. I will not be there to stop you. I will not be there to call your name and make you turn back. There will be the woods, and there will be you. A boy with a flashlight.”

And there is a flashlight here, though it’s not the big lantern-battery neon-yellow kind.  It’s more the soft, gentle light thrown by someone who lives consciously and reflects on the page genuinely and wisely. For those who have been through the wringer—literary or otherwise—Too Good to be True compels reading and reflection. 

2012 Dia de los Muertos Marigold Parade

The Johnny Depp of the Marigold Parade

This annual Day of the Dead celebration is held annually on Isleta Blvd., in the South Valley, Albuquerque, NM

Day of the Dead altar

Pacific Northwest style

Calaveras de azucar

Photo of the Day: L'envol à la Mer

Photomontage by Heidi Utz