Review: Freeheld

Solid performances can't quite save Freeheld, a fact-based drama that allows the political to overwhelm the personal. As with The Danish Girl, whose release capped off a year in which the transgender community entered the national discussion, Freeheld arrives on the heels of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in favour of marriage equality. Progress is often made from the tales of ordinary people denied their basic human rights, but screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, who penned Philadelphia and the television movie Soldier's Girl, wanders away from the richness of his core material to bang the drum, quite monotonously, for the film's message.

Based on Cynthia Wade's 2007 Oscar-winning documentary of the same name, Freeheld centers on Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore), a 23-year veteran of the New Jersey police force. It is 2002, and she and her longtime partner, Dane Wells (Michael Shannon), have recently made the local headlines for a recent drug bust, an achievement which, coupled with her doggedness and dedication, is sure to assist in her ambition to become lieutenant. She is all too aware of the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated environment - "Things are handed to you," she points out to Dane, "I have to fight for it." - and revealing herself to be a gay woman would basically be career suicide.

So when she meets Stacie (Ellen Page), 19 years her junior, Laurel's guarded and controlling nature would seem detrimental to any sort of sustained relationship. Yet their love can't be dismissed and, a year later, not only are they still together but have a dog, a house, and a registered domestic partnership. Laurel remains secretive about Stacie's status in her life, introducing her as her friend to the realtor ("I'm her friend who's also going to live with her," Stacie cracks), her roommate to Dane, and noting her as family on the police union card. Laurel may never refer to Stacie as her wife, but wife is exactly what Stacie is, so when Laurel is diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, Laurel immediately files a request for her pension benefits to be extended to Stacie. The freeholders, a panel of five Republican county legislators, reject her request and the remainder of the film depicts the couple's sometimes reluctant struggle to convince the panel to reverse their ruling.

Freeheld may have been a more resonant drama had it kept its perceived selling point, the fight for marriage equality, in the periphery. Once Steve Carell enters the picture as Steven Goldstein, the over-the-top founder of the a group named Garden State Equality who unabashedly uses Laurel's case to further his own agenda for marriage equality, Freeheld treats Laurel as a symbol rather than a flesh and blood human being. All the political hoopla distracts and it doesn't help that director Peter Sollett stages the freeholder meetings in such a remarkably bland manner. When Sollett cuts back and forth from the meeting to a weakened Laurel at home, it feels a particularly manipulative tug at the heartstrings. There is no need for such ploys, the audience is already in Laurel and Stacie's corner.

Page comprehends this, delivering a well-tempered portrayal. Moore is quietly powerful, stirring in the film's final act but perhaps even more so in the moments after her diagnosis when Page's Stacie insists that they'll beat the cancer. Laurel knows better, but goes along with Stacie's belief, knowing that hope is a comfort for her young wife.

Equally excellent is Shannon, whose character has the one genuine arc in the film. Dane is hurt that Laurel has kept her sexual orientation from him - as partners, they've had a longer relationship than most marriages, and arguably a more emotionally intimate one, and it's not the nature of the secret that shocks him but rather that she didn't trust him with it. His transformation into an unlikely LGBT supporter is a fascinating one, and the smile that plays at the corners of Dane's mouth as he manages to compel the detectives to donate their sick days to Laurel is a true highlight.

Freeheld

Directed by: Peter Sollett

Written by: Ron Nyswaner

Starring: Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, Michael Shannon, Steve Carell, Josh Charles, Luke Grimes, Dennis Boutsikaris, Skipp Sudduth