Bridegroom (2013)

B+

This isn't going to be a conventional film review.

I'm not in a place where I feel like I want to dwell on anything about the documentary "Bridegroom" that is negative, so I'll start by getting my criticisms out of the way first.

For a documentary film, this love story of a young gay couple and how one man copes with the unexpected loss of his partner and is subsequently denied the right to attend his funeral is almost absolute in its one-sidedness, a definite no-no in my book for a documentary film.

...but that's because the makers of the film reached out to the family of the late Tom Bridegroom and they refused to participate, shutting us out of the opportunity to understand their perspective, whether or not we wanted to, just like they shut out their son's partner.

I could argue that the film is shockingly naive and simple in its depiction of a relationship being so free of conflict and tense, honest negotiations that it borders on the airbrushed depictions in romantic comedies. Because every relationship has its challenges, and even a rom-com has an obligatory fight scene.

...but then, this is a relationship between two gay men, so the challenge with the relationship is so inherently external that it's no wonder that these two men forged such an internal cohesiveness. Why should they fight inside their home when they could open their front door and witness the fight coming to them?

And certainly, I could make a case for the fact that television writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason ("Evening Shade," "Designing Women") is not able to accomplish much in the way of sophistication in terms of how she presents the story told in this film.

...but this film is aiming for your heart, not your head. For the time of rationalizing is over, and the film's message of love being louder than any other external or internal forces is its ultimate goal. And there's also the fact that this film exists in the first place because of the generosity of private citizens who thought it deserved to be more than just a 10-minute YouTube video.

I managed to see "Bridegroom" without ever having seen the viral video posted on YouTube by the film's surviving subject, Shane Bitney Crone, called "It Could Happen To You." While writing this review, I finally checked out that video (which I've linked here) and discovered that over four million people had already viewed it. In some respects, the 10-minute video posting by Crone has even more impact than the film itself, as the documentary expands on what is tightly and powerfully presented in a much shorter, more compressed clip. Clearly the video had a powerful impact, because over six thousand people donated money to a Kickstarter fund used to finance the full-length documentary film.

The feature-length documentary, like the original YouTube clip, tells the story of two young men. Shane Bitney Crone grows up in rural Montana, which is not a place to be gay. And so, in spite of support from his family, Shane grows up to be passive and reclusive, exhausted by the daily hardships he faces. He escapes to Los Angeles as soon as he graduates, and is eventually introduced to Tom Bridegroom, who would become his domestic partner, co-home owner, and co-business owner for six years.

Bridegroom shared Crone's small-town, not-so-gay-friendly upbringing, having been raised in Indiana and then attending a military academy before college. But unlike Shane, Tom is unabashedly confident and magnetically attracts people toward him, the center of attention where Shane strives to be anything but. And the biggest contrast between the two men is the one that delivers the story's deepest pain. Tom's family does not support his lifestyle and not only will not accept his partner but accuses Shane of corrupting their son. And when at the age of 29 Tom dies in an accidental four-story fall from a rooftop while taking photographs of a friend, his family quickly and methodically blocks Shane out from everything from the funeral arrangements to even being mentioned at the memorial service at all. And because marriage is not yet legal in California, Shane doesn't even have the right to see Tom's body at the hospital. Nor does he have the right to stop Tom's mother from taking things from their house. Nor does he have the right to fight the family's request that he stay away from the funeral, or the leverage to report the threat of violence against his own life if he should attempt to attend.

In light of how the story turned out, "Bridegroom" is completely one-sided, with interviews of every member of Shane's immediate family and video footage of his six years spent with Tom. And while the film is deeply sad, Crone and Bloodworth-Thomason manage to steer it clear from being so heavily drenched in ethos that it neglects logos. Which is a fancy way for saying that it is just emotional enough to make any sane viewer realize that something is wrong with this world.

The time for a film like "Bridegroom" is most certainly now. Fourteen states have legalized gay marriage, while five additional states offer some form of civil union privileges.

I happen to live in one of those five states with civil union privileges, Illinois, one of 35 states in which gay marriage is banned by either constitutional amendment, state law, or both. Just a few months ago, Illinois came rather close to changing that fact, but ultimately, failed. And I was struck by one interviewee in "Bridegroom" who spoke about how it's no human being's wish when he or she is little to grow up and be in a domestic partnership. We dream of marrying.

When I got married in 1997, I asked a gay man to stand next to me at the altar as my best man. I was fully comfortable in that decision because he was my oldest, dearest and closest friend. But it is with some shame that I admit that the thought crossed my mind on numerous occasions that if the situation was reversed and I was asked to be his best man, I wouldn't know if I could do it. This is not the forum for a religious debate, but I spent many years rationalizing, and what I had decided was that I supported my friend being gay, and I supported his relationships, and I even supported the rights of gay couples to have the same legal guarantees that straight couples have. In fact, I found anything less than that civic equality to be downright senseless. "Bridegroom," in fact, confirms my worst fears of how a world without those rights is daily denying loving, decent people from their rights.

But "marriage" was, to me, was purely a church thing. And I just didn't see any scriptural evidence to support the concept that a marriage was designed to be anything other than between a man and a woman. To be clear, I have never, ever been a homophobe. I have never been unsupportive of people being who they are. I have never bought into the notion that being gay is something you can choose or wish away. I have loved and cherished and supported my gay friends. I've had more fun in gay bars than in straight bars and I've matched my gay friends in quoting movie lines from "Soapdish" and "Steel Magnolias." And I sobbed so heavily the first time I saw "Brokeback Mountain" that I thought I was going to crack in half.

Yet for whatever reason, I felt strongly that being a couple was a secular thing and being married was only an institution of the church. 

Times have changed since then. A few conservatives are coming around to discover, I believe, that support of gay marriage might just be in line with Republican values, not in opposition to it. If the Republican party is the party of less government interference (though that is surely debatable today), then GOP supporters like Clint Eastwood certainly speak for what I believe is fast becoming the new normal when he said, in 2011, that we should "give everybody the chance to have the life they want. Let's spend a little more time leaving everybody else alone." And since I never felt that the union of a gay couple was ever any threat to my own marriage, it's time for me to express my agreement with Eastwood's statement. I should probably go even further than that, but it's a start.

I still don't see any scriptural evidence to support that marriage can be between two people of the same sex. I also cannot find anything in scripture to support that Jesus was anti-anyone. And I have always been raised to believe that Jesus was the perfect earthy embodiment and manifestation of the purest form of love itself. 

Marriage IS a sacrament of the church. But it's not like I never believed that there weren't gay people who went to church and believed the same things that I do. So this is me saying that I still don't have it all figured out, but I have figured out that I am finished with any scenario that provides a fork in the road where heterosexuals go in one direction and homosexuals must go down the other. And regardless of any lingering questions I might have, that includes marriage.

Please understand that "Bridegroom" was not some sort of conversion experience for me. I'm merely using it as an opportunity to put some cards on the table that I've kept close to the vest for too long because I know some very wonderful and amazing people who deserve at least that from me. "Bridegroom" is a blessing to viewers who are skeptical about whether or not true love can come to everyone, and Shane Bitney Crone and Tom Bridegroom were an inspirational couple. And maybe, if I'm very lucky and deemed worthy enough, I will one day be invited as a guest to a wedding here in Illinois to witness one of my gay friends accomplish what Shane and Tom were robbed of.

I think I'm prepared to accept the fact that my review of this film is going to upset some of my friends and even some of my family. And to those of you I might be offending, let me be clear that I don't love you any less. But I'll bet you haven't watched "Bridegroom."

I have. Love is louder.