If you think the Elian Gonzalez affair and the presidential election made Florida look bad, wait 'til you see What Makes a Family. Rarely does as much as 15 minutes go by in this Lifetime original movie (premiering Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. ) without a reminder that Florida is the only state in the U.S. with a law forbidding adoption by homosexuals.
That point is at the crux of this true story of a landmark custody case, which achieves its aims as both a tearjerker and a call for reason and compassion in awarding children to the most loving and deserving parent without letting sexual orientation or even blood relationships be the sole determining factor.
The film has a formidable list of executive producers: Barbra Streisand, Cis Corman, Whoopi Goldberg, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron—essentially the team that made Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which had Glenn Close in Goldberg's slot. What Makes a Family is another powerful story of a lesbian fighting injustice.
Brooke Shields, establishing her dramatic cred once and for all, stars as Janine Nielssen, who is introduced outside the Pinellas County (St. Petersburg/Clearwater) court house soliciting the help of powerful civil-rights attorney Terry Harrison (Goldberg). Janine tells Terry her story in a flashback that takes up about two thirds of the picture.
Janine wasn't out when she was cruised by Sandy Cataldi (Cherry Jones) in a store. Janine's wealthy, conservative parents had come down so hard on her over her first crush at age 12 she had suppressed all sexual feelings since then. On their first date Sandy takes her to a dance at the queer "Sunnyview Community Church," and next thing you know they're having a holy union at the same church.
Beaming in the front row and supporting them enthusiastically are Sandy's parents, Evelyn (Anne Meara) and Frank (Al Waxman). That support doesn't wane when, years later, they learn they're going to be grandparents: Sandy is pregnant by artificial insemination. The donor, she says, "is everything you'd want in a man—if you wanted a man." At the christening of their daughter Heather, Sandy passes out. She's diagnosed with systemic lupus, which is said to be treatable and "not usually ... fatal."
This being the story it is, Sandy's case is obviously not usual. She fights the disease for five years. For most of that time Janine is their family's sole support, working all the extra shifts she can get. Despite being a nurse Janine is in denial about her partner's condition and doesn't have her make out a will for fear it will discourage her. One advantage of her profession is Janine knows the hospital staff and has access to her partner that would be denied most of us.
Heather, played at age five by Jordy Benattar, has two heart-wrenching scenes a few minutes apart. The first is being informed of her mother's death, that "God needed another angel." The second comes when Heather is torn from Janine because her grandparents have applied for custody and won, Janine having no legal claim. At this point Janine suffers a nervous breakdown, from which she recovers to bring us back to where we started, as she begins the legal battle to regain custody of the girl she's raised.
The screenplay by Robert L. Freedman is unabashedly partisan. If I weren't on the same side I'd really come down hard on it for its heavy-handedness. The Cataldis turn into monsters who will say or do anything to keep their granddaughter. Because "conservative Florida judge" is presumed redundant, Janine's case is assigned to "one of the most conservative judges in the state."
Most dubious from a dramatic standpoint is the Perry Mason climax in which the course of courtroom events turns on something that should easily have led to an out-of-court settlement, even assuming the rules of evidence don't apply in civil cases.
With so much crammed into just over 90 minutes (two hours with commercials) the effect is somewhat melodramatic, but director Maggie Greenwald (The Ballad of Little Jo) and her excellent cast make each individual moment ring true. Janine's first clue that she's no longer in the bosom of the Cataldi family comes when she reads Sandy's obituary in the paper and she's not mentioned. "'survived by her beloved parents and daughter,'" she reads and sighs, "I would have settled for 'longtime companion.'"
Unlike Philadelphia, in which Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas rarely touched, the women in What Makes a Family are totally affectionate, exchanging several passionate kisses. The Tony-winning Cherry Jones has been out for years and this may be the first role that's allowed her to be both sexual and sexy. The film could trigger rumors about Brooke Shields. In the past year she played Robert Downey Jr.'s beard in Black and White and had a crush on a gay man in The Weekend; and hey, she was married to a tennis player! But seriously, the way she holds her own opposite Jones in their dramatic scenes is impressive. Meara brings what humanity she can to what is essentially a wicked witch role; and if Goldberg coasts through the part of the attorney, I'd rather watch her coast than watch most actors act.
You may feel a sense of "Been there, seen that" as you watch this film, which is based on a true story, but I think that's less from seeing similar movies than from reading news reports week after week of lesbians and gay men embroiled in similar battles for the custody of children they've parented. I hope this film will give them strength and comfort, and perhaps move and enlighten the people with the authority to rule on what makes their families.
And if you have seen the subject treated dramatically before I doubt you've seen it done any better.
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