Review of Uncle Frank
midlandsmovies • December 5, 2020
Uncle Frank (2020) Dir. Alan Ball
The thing that stands out about Uncle Frank, from writer and director Alan Ball, is the performances. The sweet, finely tuned character work by Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, Peter Macdissi and the rest of the cast, including some of the best character actors we have today, overcome some of the film’s broad plot points.
Bettany plays Frank, the eldest son of the Bledsoe family, a conservative and religious household with whom he has a strained relationship. Frank leads a double-life, openly gay in New York, where he lives with Wally (Macdissi) but guarded around in his hometown of Creekville, South Carolina.
The only person he is himself around is his niece Beth (Lillis) and this feeling is reciprocated by the shy and awkward teenager, who eventually follows her uncle to New York for university.
Things come to a head when the patriarch, Mac, played by Stephen Root, dies and Frank, Beth and Wally travel cross-country to attend the funeral. Along the way we find out more about Frank’s past, we learn about Wally’s escape from extreme prejudice to find acceptance, and there’s space for a good chunk of humour.
Ball’s dialogue dazzles here. He draws on broader stereotypes but never to the detriment of the characters. Macdissi gets the best lines as the enthusiastic, slightly naughty Wally, while Bettany brings a dry wit to the titular character. Lillis is also on form, adding her name to a growing list of young actors with the potential to take the world by storm.
Uncle Frank does purposefully tug at the heartstrings a few times. The 70’s setting allows for the homophobia encountered to be more blatant, the risk greater, but also hammers home the point that 45 years on, things aren’t all that different. People still must hide their sexualities to protect themselves.
It could be argued that the ending, which drives the audience from one extreme of emotion to the other, is a touch cynical and a little too neat, but after 90 minutes in the company of these characters it’s honestly hard to care.
★★★ ½
Matthew Tilt
Twitter @Matthew_Tilt
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