Tribeca 2023 Review: Our Son Captivates As The First LGBTQ+ FIlm Of Its Kind

Many filmmakers, LGBTQ+ and heterosexual alike have attempted to create a film that represents the experience of queer relationships. In my lifetime, this has included films such as Disobedience in 2017, Fire Island from last year (which I believe I heard was leaving Hulu soon?), You Can Live Forever, which premiered at Tribeca 2022, and you can find my review here.

However, while those films explore LGBTQ+ relationships through the lens of its beginnings or religious persecution surrounding same-sex relationships, Our Son is entirely different. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between Nicky (Luke Evans) and Gabriel (Billy Porter), who have been married since gay marriage was legalized in 2012. On top of that, the film explores the destruction of their marriage and the ensuing custody battle of their eight-year-old son, Owen (Christopher Woodley).

Because of this, the audience gets to take a deep look at the makings of same-sex marriage for the first time for modern moviegoers, and most of the narrative's emotional energy is spent on showcasing the personalities Nicky and Gabriel have, their differences, and overall tries to portray them as two men who have the same problem many heterosexual couples experience on a routine basis.

What surprised me was how director and co-writer Bill Oliver and Peter Nickowitz handled this. The film is brimming with small emotional moments like Owen asking his dads, "Do you give up?" (which I found to be a nice moment with one meaning for Owen and another for his dads), Gabriel telling Nicky, "I know you love me. I just don't think that's good enough anymore.", or Nicky telling Gabriel "He's gonna freak out if he wakes up and you're not here." We've all had those moments at the end of a relationship, especially with divorced parents, where our emotional honesty with one another can get in the way of saving the relationship. It's a superb screenplay.

Another significant benefit this film has are Evans and Porter. I don't usually like Porter and Evans' acting. However, they play against their typical roles as the strongman (Evans) and flashy (Porter), where Evans plays Nicky, a book publisher who loves what he does, and Porter plays Gabriel, a former actor and stay-at-home dad.

I also loved how the two played Nicky and Gabriel, especially in quiet moments where no one is watching. You can feel their hearts sinking the more the two of them fight over Owen, and you want to give the two a huge hug or advice that will help them out.

Speaking of advice, I have a couple of notes that might help out Our Son for when it eventually releases to the public. First and foremost, the film suffers from a case of under lighting nighttime scenes. Sometimes, I had to adjust my brightness to see what was happening in each scene, so whoever was color-grading this film should probably try a more aggressive grade in future edits. This brings me to my other note - the film must lose about 22 minutes of fat. The film is one hour and 44 minutes, which isn't necessarily long, but those 22 minutes are not needed to advance the story or to pace out the emotional beats of the film in any meaningful manner. Do these two things, and whoever picks this film up for distribution will have a hit as it's the first film of its kind.

★★★★

You can watch or listen to my interview with Bill Oliver here.

Our Son had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.

Until next time!

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