Attn: LGBTQ allies. Here’s a belated recommendation for two LGBTQ-themed films that you might want to watch to celebrate Pride Month. I know I’m several years behind the ball here, but these are two films I had wanted to see but had slipped by me until I saw them both for the first time last night:
1. “Grandma,” 2015, starring Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Sam Elliott, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laverne Cox. This movie tells the story of a recently-unemployed, recently widowed, recently-went-through-a-breakup, broke, lesbian, poet-academic grandmother in Los Angeles who is enlisted by her granddaughter to help her secure the funds for a medical procedure (a ‘bortion, as Tomlin’s character calls it) after she finds herself pregnant by a douchey, potty-mouthed, pot-smoking bad boy who couldn’t give a crap about anyone but himself. The film is quite funny, despite its serious subject matter, perhaps largely because the title character is so compelling in her awkwardness that is perhaps born from a hybrid inner sense of unconditional self-acceptance, loss, failure, disappointment, and hope that one day the world will catch up with her. Not surprisingly, Tomlin is brilliant playing the spitfire, no-holds-barred, perhaps slightly bitter yet empowered, socially-norm-defying Grandma titular character. Garner is also excellent, portraying a young woman who is largely ignorant about the battles fought by the previous two generations of feminists in her family, yet nevertheless is depicted as resilient, strong, and able to educate her elders. The film portrays the disconnect between three generations of women, and, spoiler alert, the plot miraculously finds a way to resolve their generational differences without seeming at all coy, cute, or contrived. Tomlin was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, which really is the center of the film (if you don’t like Lily Tomlin, you definitely will NOT like this movie… if you love her as most of us do, you’ll definitely enjoy it.) This film has a lot of heart… it deals with the oft neglected in film, real-life issue of reproductive freedom in a way that isn’t at all preachy and doesn’t gloss over the difficulty of the subject: as Elle says to her granddaughter: “if you’re not going to cry about this, what would you cry about?” But politics is definitely NOT the focus of the film: instead the focus is the believably fraught yet redeemable relationships between Elle, her corporately successful daughter (played wonderfully by Marcia Gay Harden), and her granddaughter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_(film)
2. “A Fantastic Woman,” aka “Una mujer fantástica” in Spanish, subtitled, 2017, winner of the 2017 Academy Award for “best foreign language film,” starring Daniela Vega who gives a truly historic performance in this movie. The story revolves around the character of Marina, a transgender woman and singer/waitress in Santiago Chile, whose older male partner (spoiler alert) dies in the early part of the movie, as she navigates the transphobic society (represented by the medical field, the police, the heteronormative nuclear family, and some overtly transphobic/homophobic individuals within it – all of whom would deny her any human dignity) with absolute and exquisite grace. Vega’s performance is quite literally “breathtaking,” as there are numerous scenes where her breath is a star player: in erotic moments, moments of trauma/panic, and perhaps especially when the camera gives us the delightful opportunity to revel in her virtuosic mezzo-soprano opera singing. This film is quite simply excellent: from the ingenious storytelling, to the art direction, to the stunningly beautiful music and lighting, to Vega’s sensitive and inwardly subtle and yet immensely powerful performance… it is an incredibly moving and uplifting film, and spoiler alert, once again, despite the trauma it portrays, it culminates in a believably “happy” ending… Perhaps most interesting about this film is that it was a catalyst for positive change in Chile: after it won the Oscar, and numerous awards at multiple film festivals, it sparked a dialogue between Chilean LGBTQ activists and the Chilean government that resulted in Chile’s subsequent approval of laws that enabled trans citizens to change their official details on government documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fantastic_Woman
Ps. Both films are available on Amazon Prime streaming for "free" (including unfortunate commercials) with IMDb TV. Otherwise, one can rent them for $3.99 to stream on Amazon.
