MQFF REVIEW: Any Day Now (2012, Dir. Travis Fine)

Looks like I'm going to be the lonely heartless soul that didn't take to MQFF's opening night tear-jerker, Any Day Now. Reactions ranged from mine (eye rolling) to my sister-in-law's (eyes red raw from non-stop bawling). The general consensus was somewhere in the middle: competent, well acted, just the right side of sentimental.

Director Travis Fine dips into the "inspired by true events" barrel to recount the story of two gay men in the 1970's who take over the care of a teenager with Down syndrome after his mother is locked up by the vice squad for doing something vicey.

Fine knows his hot buttons, he gets to them quickly and he pushes them relentlessly. The newly coupled couple (and we are talking one blowjob and they're all but married) provide a stable home for the kid only to have prejudice and injustice tear it all down. The numerous courtroom scenes that make up the film's back end hammer home the point with tele-movie panache.

PREJUDICE!!!  INJUSTICE!!!

Thankfully Alan Cumming keeps the film watchable. His performance as Rudy Donatello, the film's wry bleeding heart, is touching and nuanced, though his Queens accent does trip up with irritating regularity. The fact that he gets to showcase his musical numbers are an added bonus. The only other cast member who can hold a candle to Cumming in the tearjerker stakes is young Isaac Leyva as Marco, his charge.

The rest of the cast are serviceable, if a little bland. Garret Dillahunt as Rudy's D.A. lover-cum-co-parent is a touch to wooden to move and, with his grotesquely parted hair and airplane collars, ends acting more as a prop for the 70's setting than a vehicle for emotional engagement. The same can be said for Don Franklin as their super-fly lawyer.

As a queer film, Any Day Now is refreshingly matter of fact. Fine oversteps the usual angsty lead in to Rudy and Paul's relationship in favour of setting up their relationship with Marco. It makes for an uncomfortable start but when the film settles into its groove, the couple's interactions are touchingly honest and what they lack in chemistry they make up for in constancy. Their lifestyle inevitably gets drawn into the finalé's custody hearings and frothed into an indignant fire, which is all well and good but suffers from Fine's reluctance to set the tone of the era as heavily from the outset. It does allow for a sullen, though satisfying, sting to the film's final moments.

As I said, I wan't as taken by Any Day Now as most but it was a great start to the festival and certainly got people talking/crying. It's a little different and still, over thirty years later, disturbingly relevant, I just would have preferred a little more colour to it.

★★☆

Any Day Now screened as part of the 2014 Melbourne Queer Film Festival.