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Wednesday, March 26th, 2014

An Ordinary Family

When Seth turns up at the lake side home where his whole family take their annual vacation, only his sister-in-law knows that he will have his boyfriend William in tow. Its a fact that he only shares with William when they are on the front porch and just about to ring the doorbell.  Shock turns into horror especially when after the first family meal Seth’s homophobic brother Thomas lectures the two lovers on what he considers is inappropriate behaviour in front of his two small children. Seth and William react to Thomas’s overreaction by angrily storming out of house leaving Thomas to get a tongue back-lashing for his insensitivity from his wife, mother and sister.  It’s only Chris his rather dense brother in law who hadn’t realized realized they were even gay, that doesn’t pitch in.
 
Seth has been estranged for some years from his family since Thomas’s homophobia first raised its ugly head in the Church where he is a rather holier-than-thou Pastor. This trip home is for Seth to finally come out to all his family who have all seemed to guess about his sexuality anyway, and for his self-righteous uptight brother to try and accept him for who he is.
 
It’s a sweet wee drama that tries to move the plot along with some gentle comedy that works especially well when most of the family are bonding together and not focusing on the elephant in the room. When Thomas uses the Bible as a defense for his dogmatic opinion on Seth’s relationship it is in fact his wife who shoots him down.  And the brothers mother summed it up perfectly when she asked a somewhat angry Thomas if he would prefer to choose to be right, or if would he prefer to choose to have a relationship with his brother.
 
Very good ensemble cast, and well-photographed in a really lovely house. I was surprised to discover that this rather entertaining movie had been actually been made as recently as 2011 as it had a distinctly dated feel to it.  I thought we had moved on more from the well trodden arguments that Thomas insisted on making, but maybe I am wrong and we will be stuck with them still whenever & wherever homophobia remains.
 
Available DVD and VOD

 


Posted by queerguru  at  22:21


Genres:  coming out

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