Limited Partnership (DIR. Thomas G. Miller)
By: Addison Wylie
With Limited Partnership, documentarian Thomas G. Miller shows the audience the lengthy struggle Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan faced when trying to validate their relationship through marriage. Love conquers all, but the feeling of outsider confusion and neglect suggested a hopeless future for the gay couple.
Limited Partnership is the first film in a while that has really shown how raw and ill-advised the opposing side to homosexuality has been in the past. Watching Adams and Sullivan stay afloat in a sea of puzzlement and apathetic judgement (including an official document issuing flippant use of a derogatory slur) is a shock to the system. And, through the doc’s timeline, the filmmaker is able to show how deep-seeded this issue is. However, the film travels forward and nimbly illustrates the eventual understanding despite people still not approving of this desired lifestyle.
Limited Partnership occasionally resembles a standard-issue television special. But, nonetheless, the impact of Adams and Sullivan’s story is sprawling, beautiful, and relevant – Thomas G. Miller has successfully captured all of that with this important film.
**********
Super Awesome! (DIR. Guy Edmonds, Matt Zeremes)
By: Addison Wylie
Super Awesome! has been made with good intentions, but this comedy from down under is a little too zany for its own good.
Mark and Gary (played by directors/screenwriters Guy Edmonds and Matt Zeremes) are playwrights and BFFs. Their masterpiece Gilded Lilies struck gold with theatre goers, but they’ve hit a slump with their latest endeavour, Honey, I’m Homeless. Suddenly, they’re roped into writing and directing a new musical for Broadway tackling same sex marriage, and the boys forge forward knowing very little about their subject.
The film has a bright soundtrack and some exceptional voices, and some of the un-PC jokes surprise the audience into some low-brow snickers. Although, I wish I had kind things to say about Edmonds and Zeremes’ impressions and improv, which are just plain annoying. When the filmmakers calm down to express something profound, Super Awesome! can’t handle the tonal change.
Super Awesome! is thankfully nowhere near as obnoxious as last year’s submission Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?, but its wackiness weighs the movie down.
Catch Super Awesome! at Toronto’s Inside Out LGBT Film Festival on:
Friday, May 29 at 9:45 p.m. @ TIFF Bell Lightbox
**********
Click here for more festival details and to buy tickets.
Related Links:
Reviews of Everlasting Love and Those People
Reviews of Fourth Man Out and Nasty Baby
Do You Tweet? Follow These Tweeple:
Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie
Leave a comment