Bridegroom

Still brings tears to my eyes thinking about Shane and knowing he's somewhere out there today still filled with discomfort in the loss of his best friend and companion. Very emotional and hard to wrap your head around just how intense of an emotion that would be to endure. The message is conveyed very well, and the majority of the film is just building up to a very strong climax. At the turn of events the film becomes very emotional and a strong tear jerker.

Over-all the movie is A++ but hard to watch because it is very very sad! I have seen many fictional romance movies with sad endings, but when the story is true, it can really take to heart just how powerful a story Shane has to share.

I had the privilege of seeing Bridegroom at the Little Rock Film Festival this year where it won the Best Documentary Audience Award. (By the way it also won the Audience Award at Tribeca, Toronto, Los Angeles and Memphis!) Little did I expect to experience the range of emotions I felt at the screening of this excellent film.

A moving testament of love and friendship found by two young men from small-town America, it deftly showcases the many issues involved in marriage equality when one of the young men meets an untimely death.

The results are devastating as we see the results of marriage INEQUALITY rear its ugly head. We feel the pain in a shattered relationship. Nevertheless, the movie ends with a victorious comeback for the surviving half of this enduring love.

Bridegroom is the best, and most moving documentary I have ever seen. It has the feel of an Oscar winning narrative feature. Well worth the effort to see, you will never forget this friendship that blossomed into a lifeline of love for two lonely souls.

I rate this documentary a 10 out of 10.

I'm old. I'm not young like Tom and Shane. I'm fat and homely; I'm not fit and beautiful like Tom and Shane. I've never been to Egypt or Paris or Machu Picchu or any of the other marvelous places they went together. I've never been in love, never had a serious lover or a husband or a partner or a relationship anything like theirs. I've lived alone all my life.

I tend to envy and resent people who have what I don't have; so what surprises more than any of you can know is that I'm not jealous of them, at all. I don't resent their youth or their beauty or their passion or their happiness or the adventures they shared or the delight they had in each other.

From my point of view, their story is a beautiful story of REAL love, of a blessed life, a holy life together that very, very, VERY few people ever know - maybe one in a hundred million, if even that many.

At my age I tend to see things long term, not because I'm wise but only because I'm old. I can't help it. When I look at things I see them in the context of centuries, not years. So when I look at Tom and Shane I don't see tragedy; I don't see injustice; I don't see the hateful, ignorant, fearful cruelty in some of the people around them.

Like it or not, those things are ephemeral. They don't last forever. LOVE lasts forever. Joy lasts forever. Beauty lasts forever. What Shane and Tom had will last forever, because, folks, Tom is not dead in any way that matters.

Bodies die, but the persons who live in the bodies never die. Tom is as real and as alive now as he was when Shane kissed him in front of the Eiffel Tower. He left here early, but a thousand years from now that won't matter at all, because they'll have been back together a lot longer than they were apart. That's the wonderful gift this movie gives to anyone who can receive it.

For a while, I felt interested but a bit removed. Certainly the story is tragic, but there are so many tragic tales in the world. Certainly any homophobia is horrific, but when there are still gay men being lynched, this story seemed not nearly as dramatic and shocking as others. And its style is basic – talking head interviews with friends and family, home videos, photographs.

I thought (in my smug liberal way) that its good for the country to see a film showing how normal, likable and in love two young men could be. But this wasn't news to me. It felt rudimentary, aimed at those who had never known a gay couple and realized 'hey, they're just people'.

But then something strange happened. In the film's last half hour it built into an emotional tidal wave. I didn't realize I was hit until I suddenly started to cry. These two men were so deeply, sweetly in love, and Shane Crone, rather than simply crawl into a shell after the untimely death of the love of his life, and after being barred from the funeral by the homophobic family, and dealt many other emotional (and legal) cuts and bruises only because he and his life partner were gay, managed to rally himself, and make a you tube video that has reached millions with an impossible to argue with plea for gay marriage. That he could take this devastating loss, add mistreatment, and instead of giving up on life do something important and life affirming was profoundly affecting. Suddenly the whole film seemed to have more weight. I wept through the very moving responses his video (the one that got me is a self proclaimed life-long redneck, vowing to never oppose gay lovers again). Even the end credits full of thousands of names of those who cared enough to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for the film moved me with joy for the resilience of human beings, the fact that things are getting better, and that love is still the most powerful thing in the human experience, both in personal and political terms.

I had followed Mr. Crone's story on YouTube so I was prepared with a package of tissues when I went to the premiere. What I was not prepared for was the amazing amount of humor captured in the first half of the film. It completely disarmed my tension, and made the remarkable connection between these two men that much sweeter. The story of what happens to this couple is,for me, is as moving as the very special love they shared - their connection, their love of life, their strength, and the against-so-many-odds fact that they found each other, if only for a short while.

This film is a gift.

(I would have rated it 10 but for two edits that were so jarring I was taken out of the experience momentarily during the viewing - both came off like mid-sentence interruptions to the speaker being cut-away from)