Elliott Page Movies Part Two: Significant Biopics
Along with comedy and romance, another film genre that has
always been popular is the biopic. Studiobinder.com defines a biopic
(pronounced bi oh pick) as “a movie that dramatizes the life of a real, non-fictional
individual.” It doesn’t have to tell the entire story of a person’s life or be
completely literal because not only is artistic license allowed but often is
necessary to highlight what’s worth knowing, even if it’s tragic. According to
Reel Rundown, the earliest biopic was a short film about Joan of Arc entitled Giovanna
D’Arco written and directed by Georges Mieles. His name should be familiar
because he is the same person who made the first science fiction film, A
Trip to the Moon, that I talked about in the post on Starman.
Although the film is only ten and a half minutes long, it’s surprisingly good,
and as was the case with science fiction, other filmmakers soon followed
Mieles’ lead.
https://reelrundown.com/film-industry/The-First-10-Biopics-in-Recorded-History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDf8ixdipqw
The first biopics featured religious figures like Jesus and
royalty like Queen Elizabeth, but as time passed and the genre proved to be a
favorite, filmmakers began spotlighting other celebrities such as war heroes,
sports figures, and popular musicians. In recent times, biopics have also
focused on people who would have remained nonentities had someone not told
their stories. Among these virtual unknowns are Laurel Hester and Stacie Andree
whose saga first appeared in Cynthia Ward’s 2008 Academy Award-winning
documentary Freeheld. The film highlights the difficulties that Laurel
Hester, a decorated police detective dying of lung cancer, encountered when she
decided to leave her police pension to her legal partner, Stacie Andree. This
post is about the 2015 film Freeheld which is based on the documentary
and was written by Academy Award nominee Ron Niswanger (Philadelphia).
Freeheld - 2015
Before I go into the particulars of this film, I need to
explain two pertinent aspects of the story. The first is that Laurel Hester and
Stacie Andree, legally registered sex partners in the state of New Jersey, led
very private lives until Laurel was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. When
it became evident that her condition was terminal Laurel, who had served on the
Ocean County Police Department for over twenty years, petitioned the county’s
Board of Chosen Freeholders to make Stacie her beneficiary. The second is the
word ‘freeholder.’ Up to 2021, it was New Jersey’s title for county officials
and had been part of Ocean County’s lexicon since 1850, when the first
governing body took office. A holdover from Great Britain, the term refers to
white male gentry that own property free and clear. Although social norms and
state laws changed dramatically over the years, in 2005, when Laurel wanted to
make Stacie her benefactor, New Jersey still referred to its county legislators
as freeholders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_County_Commissioners_(New_Jersey)
The movie opens with a drug sting. As detective Dane Wells
(Michael Shannon) approaches a dealer, his cover is blown, and Detective Laurel
Hester (Julianne Moore) leads her fellow officers into the fracas, saving her
partner’s life. Later, at a celebration in the local “cop” bar, top brass and
freeholders give Dane stellar accolades while virtually ignoring his female
counterpart. She isn’t troubled by this, however, because she knows that local
journalists and fellow police officers, especially Officer Wells, hold her in
high regard. Still, she’s careful of her reputation and drives an hour to
Pennsylvania to play on a lesbian volleyball league so her co-workers don’t
find out that she’s gay.
At the game, it’s obvious that twenty-two-year-old Stacie
Andree, a player on the opposing team, has a crush on her attractive
competitor. In fact, she’s been interested in Laurel for a while, and with some
encouragement from a friend, she gets up the nerve to approach the older woman
and ask her out. Flattered, Laurel accepts the invitation, and they set a date
to meet at Stacie’s favorite country-western bar on Saturday night. Even though
she’s not a fan of the music, Laurel enjoys the company and invites Stacie to
come home with her. They spend the night together (which the director manages
tastefully), and even though Laurel has “a lot of rules” that she uses to keep
her personal life private, things go well. Then, while Laurel is getting ready
for work, the phone rings, and as she rushes to answer it, she sees Stacie
reach for the receiver. Thinking of what could happen if anyone found out she
was with a female lover, Laurel jumps all over Stacie, who becomes offended and
stomps out.
Although Laurel is uncomfortable with the age difference,
she really likes Stacie, so she calls to apologize in hopes of getting another
date. Being equally interested, Stacie agrees to see her again, and soon the
women are dating regularly. While getting to know one another, they share their
dreams and discover that both want a house. a dog, and someone to love. Within
a year, they are so committed to the relationship that they buy a fixer-upper
and go through the arduous process of being recognized as legal domestic
partners, which includes providing extensive paperwork. As tokens of their
love, Stacie gives Laurel a ring, which is a family heirloom, and Laurel gives
Stacie an Ocean County Police ID card that identifies her as family.
Although they are happy together, Laurel continues to forbid
Stacie to answer the phone or accompany her to police functions, which Stacie
honors but resents. Then, when Dane comes by to see the new house and Laurel
introduces him as her “partner” and Stacie as her “roommate,” Stacie angrily
points out, “I’m your partner; he’s the guy you work with.” Knowing that
she needs to be honest so as not to lose her best friends, Laurel tells Dane
the truth. As she had feared, he becomes angry, not because she’s gay but
because she doesn’t trust him. She defends her actions by pointing out how much
she would lose if word got around the department that she is a lesbian, and he
backs off, acknowledging the damage that such information could cause. Having
resolved the obstacle that was interfering in her relationships with the two
people she loves most, Laurel feels that her life is actually turning out the
way she’s always wanted. Then she gets a backache that won’t go away.
At Stacie’s insistence, Laurel consults a doctor, who does a
biopsy and finds that she has stage 4 lung cancer. Although she immediately
starts getting treatments, Laurel’s health continues to deteriorate, and she
begins to worry that Stacie, who earns little as a mechanic, will lose the
house. Accepting that the woman she loves is more important than her
reputation, Laurel officially designates Stacie as the beneficiary of her
pension benefits. Because Laurel works for the county, the Freeholders must
approve her request, and even though the state of New Jersey has adopted a
Domestic Partnership Act that gives counties the power to recognize same-sex
relationships, it does not require them to do so. Given the option, the
all-male board refuses her request. Thus, while fighting for her life, Laurel
is also forced into a battle with the government.
Freeholder Bryan Kelder (Josh Charles) admires the faithful
service Laurel has given her community for over two decades and pressures the
other members to reconsider their decision. The men remain steadfast, however,
especially Bill Johnson (Tom Gowan), who adamantly insists that a homosexual
relationship is “a violation of the sanctity of marriage.” The others
justify going along with him by saying that the board has always agreed on
unanimity, but there’s an added wrinkle. Freeholders are elected officials, and
rather than it being about tradition, their refusal is more probably due to
their concerns about losing their seats and the benefits that come with them.
In time, Laurel’s case comes to the attention of Steven
Goldstein (Steve Carell), the chair of Garden State Equality, an organization
that fights for the rights of the state’s marginalized people. He comes to town
with a cadre of supporters, and as the community at large comes to understand
the case, many of them join him in the fight. Yet even though numerous
residents demand that the Freeholders change their minds, the five men remain
resolute.
Things are at a stalemate until Laurel starts to run low on
sick days, putting her at risk of losing both health and life insurance. It is
at this point that Dane calls on his co-workers to donate some of their time,
especially fellow officer Todd Belkin (Luke Grimes), who is gay. In the end,
Laurel’s co-workers relinquish their paid time off and go one step further by
attending a board meeting on her behalf. What helps Laurel’s case more than
anything, though, is that Dane finds out that the Freeholders who have more
than one government job have more than one government pension. When Goldstein
learns about this, he beseeches his friend Governor Jon Corzine for help, and
in turn, the Governor pressures the board to grant Laurel’s petition. Unable to
refuse, the men hold another meeting, and although Bill Johnson tries to
prevent a decision by failing to attend, they vote without him and approve the
request three weeks before Laurel dies.
The case had momentous consequences. At the individual
level, Stacie received Laurel’s pension and was therefore able to retain the
house. On a broader basis, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that “same-sex
couples must have the same rights as heterosexual couples”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeheld_(2007_film)) and passed a law that
allows public employees to leave their pensions to legal partners regardless of
gender. In 2013, the state went one step further by offering legal marriage
licenses to same-sex couples. Laurel’s death also led to the establishment of
the League Foundation LGBT Scholarship, which is for any high school student
who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer. Finally, on January 1,
2021, the state of New Jersey outlawed the term Freeholder and replaced it with
the word Commissioner.
https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Freeheld-a-lesbian-romance-that-led-to-6556255.php
Although it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, the haunting song
“Hands of Love,” which plays as the final credits roll, is worth a listen. It
was written for the movie by Linda Perry (formerly lead singer/songwriter for
Four Non-Blondes) and performed by Miley Cyrus. I’ve included the YouTube link.
Lastly, if you want to see the original documentary, you can stream it on the
Hoopla channel for free, but YouTube has film clips that provide glimpses of
Laurel, Stacie, and others who lived this drama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT2w9-QB1b4
Discussion
I thought a lot about what happened to Laurel and Stacie and
realized that their case was due as much to misogyny as it was homophobia. Not
only were board members John Kelly, Joseph Vicari, Gerry Little, John Bartlett
Jr., and James Lacey all male, but historically, the Ocean County government
had been a masculine domain. For example, when Laurel died in 2006 only one
woman had ever been elected to the board of Freeholders. In fact, even now only
three women have served on the board: Hazel Gluck (1977–1988), Virginia Haynes,
2016, and Barbara Crea (2022). Further, the county has never elected a female
for state senator and has only chosen one woman as a prosecuting attorney.
(“Ocean County’s gender scoreboard” David Wildstein, 2/19/2019).
Another thing I found intriguing about the movie was the
title, Freeheld. Although the word ‘free’ stirs complex emotions, its
meaning is pretty straightforward: one who is free is neither confined nor
controlled. The word ‘hold,’ on the other hand, is multifaceted and capable of
illustrating various states of being. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the
word ‘hold’ can function as a noun, a verb, or an adjective and has a plethora
of definitions that include possess, restrain, prevent, delay, accommodate,
support, bear, and embrace. In this movie, Steven Goldstein and his group come
to the board meeting crying out, “You have the power,” because the Freeholders
‘possess the’ ability to let Laurel leave her pension to Stacie. Instead, the
men 'restrain' her from doing so by ‘preventing’ any of the board members from
dissenting, thereby ‘delaying’ her petition for over a year.
‘Hold’ also applies to Laurel and Stacie, though, because
they withstood the board’s cruelty by 'supporting' and ‘accommodating’ each
other while ‘bearing’ up under terrible conditions, and ‘embracing’ one another
throughout the ordeal. Finally, ‘hold’ depicts their community, which changed
from denying Laurel’s appeal to leave her pension to Stacie (withholding it) to
demanding that she be allowed to do so (holding it out). Therefore, in
retrospect, because of its multilayered connotations, the word ‘held’ was not
only appropriate but perfect for describing the drama that took place in Ocean
County, New Jersey, in 2005.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/ocean-countys-gender-scorecard/
https://co.ocean.nj.us/OC/ch/frmCommissionerListings.aspx
An American Crime-2007
As I stated earlier, most biopics have offered stories about
famous people like government leaders, musicians, writers, scientists, or
inventors. Who hasn’t seen at least one film about Abraham Lincoln, Queen
Elizabeth, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, Albert Einstein, Truman Capote, Nikola
Tesla, or Steve Jobs? Other movies have dissected the lives of people who are
infamous for being bad, such as Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Al Capone, or
Bonnie and Clyde. There are also those whose names are familiar because screenwriters
sought to reveal the heinous crimes that they committed. Included among them
are Adolph Hitler, Joseph Mengele, Leopold and Loeb, Bruno Hauptmann, Ted
Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. It is far less common, however, for people's names
to be familiar because they were victims. Some examples are Jaycee Dugard and
Elizabeth Smart, who became the subjects of made-for TV movies because they
survived terrible ordeals. Even less common are stories about victims who
garnered public attention primarily because their families were wealthy;
included among these are the Lindbergh baby and JonBenet Ramsey. Rarest of all are
biopics about people whose names would never have been known had something
terrible not happened to them, hapless victims “whom there were none to praise
And very few to love” (William Wordsworth, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden
Ways), like Sylvia Likens.
An American Crime is the only movie in this blog that
I did not, or could not, watch again. Therefore, most of the information either
comes from research that I did online or from the book House of Evil: The
Indiana Torture Slaying by John Dean, on which the movie is based. Writing
as a journalist, he interviewed key figures and attended the trial to gather
information for his book, which is still considered the most complete and
accurate accounting of this tragic event.
Sylvia was one of five children born to Lester and Betty
Likens, a poorly educated couple that barely earned enough money to support
their family. Every so often, Lester would get drunk and become abusive, at
which time Betty would leave. In the summer of 1965 when she did so, she took
sixteen-year-old Sylvia, disabled fifteen-year-old Jenny with her, and moved
into an apartment in a rundown area of Indianapolis near East New York Street.
The family had lived around there before, and the girls immediately ran into
their old friend Darlene McGuire, who introduced them to Paula Baniszewski
(pronounced Banis chef ski). Paula, whose mother Gertrude (Gertie) had moved
the family into a large rundown duplex on East New York Street a couple of
weeks earlier, was also a new resident.
Hoping to reunite his family, Lester brought his son Danny
to Indianapolis to search for his wife and daughters. They soon learned that
Betty had been arrested for shoplifting, leaving the girls alone, and like a
lot of the kids in the area, Sylvia and Jenny were hanging out at Paula’s
place. Lester decided to check there, and to his relief, he found the girls
safe and sound. He met Gertie and confided that he and Betty had a job all set
up with a carnival if they could get someone to watch their daughters. Always
strapped for cash, Gertie, who was accustomed to having a house full of kids
anyway, offered to watch Sylvia and Jenny for twenty dollars a week (almost
$200 today). The girls seemed excited about the prospect, so Lester went back
to the apartment and found Betty there. When he filled her in on Gertie’s
offer, she thought it sounded good, so they cut a check, told the kids to be
good, and set out on the road.
Like Lester and Betty, Gertie barely scraped by,
supplementing the sporadic child support she received from her ex-husband John
with money she earned by ironing and babysitting. Nevertheless, she still had
trouble making ends meet. The living quarters were sparsely furnished, and the
kids took turns sleeping on one of four beds. Rather than eating meals cooked
on a stove, they heated canned soup on a hotplate, served it on three dishes,
and ate it by sharing a couple of spoons. According to witnesses, everyone got
along well at first, but that changed when Lester’s payment failed to arrive on
time (it came the next day), and Gertie took it out on the girls by spanking
them with a wooden paddle. Then, when she heard that Sylvia was spreading nasty
rumors about her daughters Paula and Stephanie, had stolen another girl’s gym
uniform, had taken ten dollars from her purse, and had done some sexual things
with a former boyfriend, Gertie, who hadn’t liked Sylvia from the start, began
to hate the girl. She called her a “prostitute,” punctuating the insults with
punches or kicks, and encouraged the kids to burn her with cigarettes or push
her down the basement stairs.
When any members of the Likens family visited, Gertrude
would warn Sylvia and Jenny not to blab if they knew what was good for them,
and for some reason, they obeyed. However, after a time, older sister Dianna
became concerned and told the authorities that she suspected Sylvia was being
mistreated. The police and a health nurse went by to check on the situation,
but Gertie told them Sylvia ran off with some boys, and rather than
investigating further, they accepted her explanation and let the matter drop. Mrs.
Vermillion, who lived next door, later admitted to seeing Sylvia with bruises
and hearing odd noises coming from the basement, but never reported it. After
three months of escalating violence, Sylvia died, at which time Gertie was
forced to contact the police. However, when they arrived, she blamed Sylvia for
her own wounds, saying the boys she’d left with had hurt her. The strategy
might have worked had Jenny not taken the police aside and promised to tell
them the truth in exchange for getting her out of the house.
Thanks to Jenny’s statement, Gertrude (37), three of
her children, Paula (18), Stephanie (15), and John (12), and seven kids from
the neighborhood, Richard (14), Coy (15), Anna (13), Judy (13), Darlene (14),
Randy (12), and Michael (12), were picked up and questioned. Afterward,
Gertrude, Paula, John, Coy, and Richard were put on trial for Sylvia’s death,
found guilty, and incarcerated. Although she was also implicated, Stephanie
testified for the state, and her charges were dropped. The prosecution believed
that the other children had also participated in the crime but didn’t have
enough evidence to prove it, so decided not to charge them.
As if this case wasn’t bizarre enough, there were some
glaring ironies. Gertie not only accused Sylvia of being a prostitute, but
spread rumors that she was pregnant, which lead Paula to hit Sylvia in the jaw
hard enough to break her own arm. In reality, however, it was Gertrude’s and
Paula’s morals that were out of step with the times. Gertrude had a baby out of
wedlock with her boyfriend, Dennis Lee Wright, who then joined the military and
was shipped overseas to evade his obligations. And seventeen-year-old Paula,
who often voiced disgust over Sylvia’s loose morals, was unmarried and
pregnant. During the trial, she gave birth to a daughter that she named
Gertrude, who was then put up for adoption.
Discussion
In his opening statement, Deputy Prosecutor Leroy New called
Sylvia’s torture and murder “the most terrible crime ever committed in the
state of Indiana” (New York Times, May 27, 1966) and presented a lot of
evidence to support what he said. What he was never able to demonstrate,
however, was why it happened. As I have said before, as a sociologist, I don’t
believe human behavior occurs in a vacuum. There were things going on in that
house and in that neighborhood, and at that time, those undoubtedly contributed
to Sylvia Likens death.
https://time.com/archive/6629479/trials-avenging-sylvia/
Although their behavior is inexcusable on every level, it is
not difficult to understand why the Baniszewski were boiling over with rage in
the summer of 1965. They were destitute, and they weren’t used to living that
way. Until Gertrude divorced him, her ex-husband John, who was a police officer
and still very much a part of the children’s lives, had brought home a steady
paycheck. Then, after the divorce, Gertrude got pregnant by Dennis Wright,
moved in with him, and he supported her and the kids for over a year. By July
1965, when Sylvia and Jenny met them, however, Dennis was gone, and Gertie and
her family were starving. In fact, although she and Paula relished accusing
Sylvia of promiscuity, the thing that often set them off was discovering that
Sylvia’s sister Dianna had given her food, and she hadn’t brought it back to
the house to share with the rest of them. (I still don’t understand why
Gertrude didn’t get food stamps; Indiana has had them since the Depression.)
It's much more difficult to understand why those who saw
evidence of Sylvia’s abuse were hesitant to report it, but it probably was due
to a number of things. For instance, at the trial after admitting that she saw
indications of Sylvia’s mistreatment, Mrs. Vermillion was careful to add that
she felt bad for Gertrude because she had all those kids to care for. Perhaps that
was true, or maybe she had learned that Gertie’s ex-husband was a cop and was
afraid that calling the police would make trouble for her own family. This
could also apply to Judy Duke’s mother who forbade Judy to go back to the house
once she heard what went on there, yet, like Mrs. Vermillion, failed to do
anything to stop it.
Another key factor might be the standard of living of those
involved. The three thousand block of East New York Street was located in a
depressed section of the city, and data suggests that the poor have less
confidence in the police than those whose incomes are moderate or high.
However, this doesn’t explain why the police officer and health nurse didn’t
act…or does it. The health nurse testified that she saw so many awful living
situations, she didn’t find the environment at Gertie’s home alarming. And even
if he weren’t standing down because Gertrude’s ex was a cop, the police officer
would have been aware that the area was economically disadvantaged and just
chalked the situation up to everyone involved being poor white trash.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43904/12
On a broader scale, gender and the escalating war in Vietnam
could have played roles as well. The twenty years that separated Gertrude and
Sylvia placed them in vastly different social milieus for females. In 1946,
when Gertrude was sixteen, she dropped out of school to get married and have
kids, which was common at the time, since marriage and family were priorities
for girls. On the other hand, at the same age, Sylvia beheld a landscape
teeming with educational and occupational opportunities that Gertrude could
never have imagined.
The social circumstances for lower-class young men, on the
other hand, wouldn’t have been so appealing. In 1965, American families watched
their government more than double conscription as President Johnson sought to
fulfill the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by escalating America’s military presence
in Vietnam. Since around eighty percent of draftees were from either poor or
working-class families, exactly the kind of people who lived in Gertrude’s
neighborhood, it’s highly likely that some of her neighbors didn’t want to get
involved with the police because they didn’t trust their government.
Last, as was the case with Freeheld, the title needs
to be considered because it suggests that this story deals with a special sort
of crime, an American one. Is the word American significant? According to some
critics, the best film ever made was A Place in the Sun, which was about
an ambitious young man, George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), who kills his
pregnant girlfriend, Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), so he can be free to marry
the beautiful young socialite, Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). The plot is
taken from the novel An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser’s masterpiece
that was based on a real case that took place in 1906 in Big Moose Lake, New
York. On the internet, discussions about the titles of both movies focus on the
words ‘tragedy’ and ‘crime,’ but I believe the term ‘American’ should not be
overlooked.
Since it entered the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century, the United States has been counted as a member of an elite group of nations designated as First World, or Developed, countries with stable economies, advanced technology, a superior educational system, and a high standard of living. Their populations have low birth rates, a long-life expectancy, and, in contemporary times, egalitarian rights along with a wide range of occupations for women. Aside from Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, the ‘top twenty’ are located in Northern America, Northwestern Europe, and Australia. However, even though its citizens enjoy many advantages, the U.S. only comes in at number seventeen. Among other criteria, the county’s status is reduced by an infant mortality rate that is 71% higher than that of comparable countries and by the humiliating fact that it is where 93% of murder victims under the age of eighteen reside. Thus, as the title implies, what happened to Sylvia is notably American because it wouldn’t have happened if she’d lived in any other developed country. (I had a table showing the numbers, but Blogger gave me so much trouble, I just decided to forget including it. Note the descrepancies in the print on the next couple of paragraphs.)
Except for Paula, those convicted of
murdering Sylvia had shorter than expected life spans. Paula, who was released
from prison in 1971, immediately changed her last name to Pace and moved to
Iowa. When Gertrude got out in 1985, she followed her daughter to Iowa, changed
her name to Nadine Van Fossan, and died of lung cancer five years later, at the
age of sixty-one. Due to them being so young, the boys were found guilty of
manslaughter and were released after a couple of years, but they all died
young. Richard Hobbs was only twenty-one when he died from lung
cancer. (Dean thinks it was due to heavy smoking, but I think he
might have inherited a tendency toward the disease from his mother.) Coy
Hubbard and John Jr. also passed away early, at fifty-six and fifty-two,
respectively.
Judy Duke, the only child upset enough to tell her parents what was happening at Gertie’s house, and Sylvia’s old friend Darlene McGuire are still alive, as are four of Gertrude’s kids. Sylvia’s parents, Betty and Lennie Likens, are dead now, but she lived to be seventy-one, and he lived to be eighty-seven. Jenny’s twin brother Benny, who suffered from schizophrenia, died when he was only forty-nine (I don’t think anyone knows exactly how), and Jenny passed away five years later, but she was a polio survivor and had never been healthy. However, Sylvia’s older siblings, Danny, and Dianna, are still alive. Overall, it appears to me that being poor doesn’t necessarily lead to an early death any more than it causes violent behavior. (I had a table that went here, too.)
What makes this case bearable for me are the positive
changes that it brought about. As a result of Sylvia’s death, Indiana began to
take child abuse so seriously that it has designated “everyone” who witnesses
possible abuse or neglect a mandatory reporter and has set up the Indiana Child Abuse Hotline
(1-800-800-5556), so people can report anonymously. Furthermore, members of law
enforcement are charged with taking reports seriously. Finally, in 2016,
Sylvia’s hometown of Lebanon, Indiana, changed the name of the Boone County
Child Advocacy Center to Sylvia’s Child Advocacy Center. The organization
recently purchased a building dedicated to providing therapy for the
community’s youth, and it was awarded accreditation from the National
Children’s Alliance on November 1, 2021.
https://incacs.org/indianas-terrible-crime-leads-big-changes-boone-county-cac/
Child
Abuse Laws State-by-State - FindLaw
Conclusion
IMDB gave Freeheld an overall rating of 66%, and it
barely scored 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, a lot of critics really panned
the film. Odie Henderson on the Roger Ebert website blamed the director (who
has been nominated for several awards for his other films), and many other
critics have written extremely negative reviews as well. Since I really liked
the film, especially after viewing it a second time, I was starting to wonder
if I’d completely misunderstood what I’d seen when I came across an article by
Rex Reed. Knowing how snarky and scathing his analyses can be, I had low
expectations, but he spoke so positively about the performers, the message, and
the dialog, that I felt vindicated. Reed has been an actor and a novelist as
well as a critic, so he might have a broader understanding of the film’s
perspective. Or maybe he viewed it in a more positive light because he has
always been openly and unapologetically gay and able to “get” it in a way that
a lot of people could not.
Right now, you can stream the movie on numerous free sites,
including Pluto, CW, and Prime if you’re a member, or you can pay to watch it
on VUDU or Apple TV. Of course, it’s for sale on Amazon and eBay for decent
prices, but if you’re really savvy and can figure out how to download Hoopla
from your library’s website by using your library card (If you don’t have one,
get one; they are usually free.) You can see both the movie and the original
documentary.
People liked An American Crime much better than they
did Freeheld (???). The film scored 72% on IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes
audiences give it a score of 74%. You can watch it for free on multiple
streaming services, including Hoopla, so you can watch it after you’re done
viewing both the Freeheld movie and documentary. There is also a
2007 fictional adaptation based on Sylvia’s case named The Girl Next Door,
but it is more in the horror genre. For some reason, the critics liked it more,
a lot more (67%), than they did An American Crime. I don’t watch horror
movies, so I haven’t seen it, but it’s free on Tubi and FreeVee for those that
are interested. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to buy it, but if you
decide to, you’ll have to check it out for yourself.
My last few posts have covered some dark topics, so next
time I think I’ll lighten the mood with some films from the 80s and 90s that I
found more fun. Till then, Peace out
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