Uncle Frank
Alan Ball, the talent behind American Beauty and Six Feet Under, exposes Southern prejudice with his most personal work to date.
Road to perdition?: Sophia Lillis and Paul Bettany
Beth has a
real affinity with Uncle Frank. In fact, he is probably the favourite member of
her family. Growing up in 1960s’ Creekville, South Carolina, Elizabeth Bledsoe (Sophia
Lillis) is pure peaches-and-cream, but beneath all that home-grown sweetness is
an intelligence that sets her apart from the rest of the Bledsoe clan. Which is
why she is drawn to Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany), who’s left town to make his
name as a prominent literature professor at NYU. In her homely voice-over, Beth
tells us that Frank is the only one who actually treats her like an adult and
listens to what she has to say. He also keeps his nails trimmed, wears
aftershave and is smart and funny and considerate. “He was,” she says, “the
kind of person I wanted to be.”
The family
chaos of Southern life is deftly caught in the opening scenes, with the women
folk fussing in the kitchen, the children running riot and the menfolk watching
football while quaffing their beer. But outside on the veranda there is uncle
Frank, filling Beth’s head with big ideas and Madame Bovary. Then, four years later, Beth is eighteen and is
studying at NYU herself, thanks to the far-sighted encouragement of her uncle.
And, while preserving her virginity, she has even got herself a boyfriend.
Then, turning up unannounced at Frank’s apartment, she discovers he’s living
with another man. That man, Walid Nadeem (Peter Macdissi), doesn’t drink, won’t
touch bacon and prays to Mecca every morning. Lil’ Beth isn’t in Creekville
anymore…
It’s been a
busy fortnight for mainstream films about closeted homosexuality. First there
was the festive romcom Happiest Season,
in which Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart have to play it straight for the
sake of familial appearances. And a week later there was Viggo Mortensen’s Falling, in which the actor plays a gay
man confronting his father’s homophobia. Uncle
Frank is written and directed by Alan Ball, who won an Oscar for his first
screenplay, American Beauty (1999),
and went on to create such hit TV series as Six
Feet Under and True Blood. And,
like Frank Bledsoe, he grew up in the Deep South (Georgia) and is gay. In fact,
his partner, the Lebanese actor Peter Macdissi, plays Frank’s boyfriend in the
film. And for a real shot of autobiographical realism, there’s a scene where
Paul Bettany sobs over the gravestone of one Sam Lassiter. It wasn’t until Alan
Ball, aged 33, had come out to his mother that he learned that his late father
had been “a real, real, real good friend" of a man called Sam Lassiter,
who had drowned while working with him at summer camp.
It’s a
hugely personal story then, and, as we all know, Alan Ball is a highly
accomplished screenwriter. His coup d'état is exploring the prejudice in his
story through the eyes of a compassionate spirit still wet behind the ears –
guilelessly played by Sophia Lillis. She is the beating heart of the
film, the spunky innocent who sees people for what they are, while learning on
the hoof the lessons that life doles out. And as Frank, Paul Bettany brings
both enormous grace and pain to his reading. Being English, his ‘otherness’
seems perfectly in keeping with Frank’s. Others in the cast – Margo Martindale,
Lois Smith and Judy Greer – prove all pros to the manor born. Like Green Book, the film highlights the
cruelty of small mindedness in salient strokes, and does so with skill and
humour. And the final act, stoked by Nathan Barr's emotive score, shouldn't
leave a dry eye in the house.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, Peter
Macdissi, Judy Greer, Steve Zahn, Lois Smith, Margo Martindale, Stephen Root, Jane
McNeill, Colton Ryan, Britt Rentschler, Caity Brewer, Hannah Black, Cole Doman,
Burgess Jenkins, Michael Perez, Voltaire Council, Dave Blamy.
Dir Alan Ball, Pro Bill Block, Michael Costigan, Jay Van Hoy, Stephanie Meurer, Peter
Macdissi and Alan Ball, Screenplay
Alan Ball, Ph Khalid Mohtaseb, Pro Des Darcy Scanlin, Ed Jonathan Alberts, Music Nathan Barr, Costumes Megan Stark Evans, Sound
Kent Sparling.
Miramax/Your Face Goes Here Entertainment/Byblos
Entertainment/Cota Films/Parts & Labor-Amazon Media.
95 mins. USA. 2020. Rel: 25 November 2020. Available on Amazon Prime. Cert. 15.