Review: ‘Uncle Frank’ (2020)
Paul Bettany shines in a powerful leading performance in Amazon’s emotional LGBTQ drama
CW: This article discusses homophobia and parental abuse.
This review contains spoilers.
What must it be like to have been raised by a severely homophobic parent? This is a question raised in Uncle Frank, written and directed by Alan Ball. Set in the 1970s and told from the perspective of Beth (played by the exquisitely charming Sophia Lillis), this story explores Beth’s cultured Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany, appearing like a tall, stoic stone wall). Feeling like a black sheep in her family, just like her uncle, Beth has always been fascinated by Frank, who is “smart, funny, considerate”, and speaks to Beth like an adult. Frank rarely visits because he lives in New York City instead of South Carolina, where their family resides. They discuss literature, the arts, and everything else they have in common, or at least that is what’s insinuated by the introductory scene as a voiceover narration takes over, explaining Beth’s relationship to Frank for us. Their conversation is muted, the editing switches to slow motion, and lens flairs and soft music tell us this is moving. Frank’s father (and Beth’s grandfather) is Daddy Mac (Stephen Root). We are introduced to the family, the Bledsoes, on Daddy Mac’s birthday as he is handed Frank’s present. Frank’s sister-in-law Kitty (Judy Greer), comments on how “it must be from Frank” because it is “wrapped up so nice”. Daddy Mac crudely tosses Frank’s present aside and asks for the next gift from his other son, Mike (Steve Zahn) — a gift he meets with excitement and graciousness. For reasons unknown to Beth, hostile and boisterous Daddy Mac seems to hate sensitive Uncle Frank.
Five years later, Beth goes to college in New York City, where Frank works as a professor. Crashing a party at Frank’s apartment, Beth accidentally stumbles upon Frank’s gay bohemian lifestyle, finally realizing why their family treats him so harshly. With his partner right next to him, Frank comes out to Beth in an exceptionally well-performed scene. The uncertainty and makeshift emotional intelligence involved in coming out to one’s niece reads authentically on Frank’s face, as well as the uncertainty of how to react from Beth’s perspective. Both of these actors work their chemistry for this oddly specific dynamic in a superbly believable fashion. The outstanding Peter Macdissi plays Wally, Frank’s partner who fills the screen with his warm, welcoming smile, with kind eyes that radiate character of their own. Frank gets a call from his mother (Margo Martindale) in South Carolina with news that Daddy Mac has had a heart attack and passed. The trio decides to drive down to Daddy Mac’s funeral, and some pleasant road trip bonding ensues. Frank and Beth get to know each other a little better, and Paul Bettany and Sophia Lillis do excellent work selling this awkward relationship. It’s sweet and heartwarming, but brief. Peter Macdissi gets his own star-making scene in which he lovingly calls his mother from a phone booth. As they get closer to South Carolina, Frank is forced to revisit a painful, traumatic memory involving his father and a boy named Sam, and things get complicated. Inebriated, Frank faces his grieving family, and we realize Frank’s sturdy, obelisk-like exterior has been compromised. He now appears like a stone wall worn down to abrasion from alcohol and revisited trauma.
The screenwriting does not exactly flow naturally and is occasionally interrupted with exposition that sounds almost copied and pasted into the dialogue. Alan Ball, whose writing credits include such imaginative works as American Beauty and Six Feet Under, stumbles with this screenplay. It would be challenging for any film to explain a lifetime of paternal homophobia and abuse. Still, there should certainly be more of a sense that over the course of many years, there have been vast amounts of microaggressions, as well as overt abuse, that have slowly chipped away at Frank’s character (Paul Bettany’s powerful performance suggests this, though the screenplay does not). Frank’s trauma is explained almost entirely by his father’s Christianity, as well as Sam’s suicide, a plot point that promotes the story to suspended melodrama for a few minutes. With the amount of tragedy injected into the climax of the story, realistically, these overwhelming emotions would continue to spill out of Frank over a period of time rather than a couple of scenes. But this film seems to have been made for audiences that crave resolution and closure, even though there really should be none. If such a piece were indeed written for LGBTQ+ audiences, there might be a lingering sense that Frank’s unresolved trauma and grief will take quite some time to process. Paul Bettany’s Frank is a complex character by the end of the film, though the screenplay is too preoccupied with tying up a happy ending to care. Frank is now out to his family, and the homophobic patriarch is now deceased; therefore, so is homophobia itself (except for one in-law). Relatives smile and hug as lens flairs reappear, and slow-motion seeps into the editing. Soothing music begins to swell as Beth delivers one last voiceover.
Uncle Frank is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
Incluvie score: 3.5
Movie score: 3.5
