Freeheld

Dir: Peter Sollett

2015

***

Freeheld tells the story of Laurel Hester, a police detective from New Jersey who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2005. Hester asked the county board of chosen freeholders that her pension would go to her registered domestic partner Stacie Andree whom she shared the cost of a house with but she was denied her request on the basis that pensions where granted only for married heterosexuals. Hester then started a campaign for equal pension rights with the limited time she had left. Cynthia Wade chronicled the story in her award winning documentary (also called Freeheld) in 2007, the year after Laurel died. Screenwriter Ron Nyswaner began writing a dramatized adaption of the documentary back in 2010 and the film was completed in late 2014. The film stared Julianne Moore as Laurel Hester and Ellen Page as her partner Stacie (Page had been part of the film from the beginning and also co-produced). Michael Shannon plays Hester's detective partner Dane Wells and Steve Carell took the role of lawyer and activist Steven Goldstein. Despite the films big name stars, it had a rather unspectacular release. It wasn't that the performances were bad or that the film's story wasn't accepted, it's just that the film itself is unspectacular. It is such a wonderful story but it just doesn't come across in this film. Julianne Moore is great, Ellen Page less so I’m afraid and Steve Carell is unfortunately on Judd Apatow mode. He may well have got Steven Goldstein's persona down to a t, I don't know but that was Steve Carell being Steve Carell in any number of films he has already been in. Michael Shannon plays a rather conflicting character also, never really convincing me of his actions. The problem is the real life people depicted in the film are nothing like they are in real life. The people and the story are woefully undermined by the formulaic structure and dramatizing of the important real life events. I'm never too sure why film makers feel the need to dramatize a documentary in the first place. What on earth is the point? In this case it was a way of telling this important story so that more people might learn about it but the truth of the matter is that they short changed everyone involved. I'm probably being generous with my 3 star review but it really isn't a bad film, it is just that the story, and most importantly Laurel Hester, deserved better.