Kids – er, teens – say the darnedest things. During a weekend excursion back to visit his family, the newly separated Nicky (Luke Evans) gets a bit of tough love from his nephew. “It must be hard fighting for the right to marry,” he tells his gay uncle, “And ending up in a divorce court like everyone else.” His remark elicits giggles, gasps, and groans … along with a nod of tacit recognition.
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It’s somewhat of a thesis statement for “Our Son,” Bill Oliver’s chronicle of domestic disbanding. It desires to be universal. It longs for recognition as “Kramer vs. Kramer” or “Marriage Story” but with a same-sex couple. Co-writer and director Bill Oliver wants it to resemble these obvious touchpoints because he wants audiences to recognize the universal in the specific experience of two gay men who find romance difficult to sustain when introducing a child into the mix.
Especially at the film’s outset, Oliver and co-writer Peter Nickowitz take that broad identification a little too seriously. The couple maps far too neatly onto established archetypes within a heterosexual marriage. Evans’ Nicky serves as the breadwinner, while Billy Porter’s Gabriel plays the homemaker. The rift between them presents itself immediately and obviously.
And as if the contrasting character types did not establish their differences loudly enough, Nicky and Gabriel speak about their marital issues with unnatural clarity and composure. They lay their conflicts bare from their first private moment in “Our Son,” letting their resentment flow in neatly conveyed complaints like “I really hate it when you argue with me in front of our friends.” Far too often, Nicky and Gabriel do not sound like characters talking. They sound like screenwriters deliberating over the subtextual conflict out in the open.
No one looks at 2023 America and sees complete equality across sexual orientations, so movies like “Our Son” still have a role to play in the cultural conversation. Yet the overall disposition feels largely unchanged from 2010’s needle-moving “The Kids Are All Right.” All that really separates their worldviews is the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that made marriage equality a federal guarantee. Nicky and Gabriel’s normalcy is significant. It is also stultifying to any kind of narrative momentum as they sleepwalk toward the inevitable dissolution of their marriage.
And just when the movie seems to blare its intentions loud and clear by Nicky’s nephew at the dinner table, it pivots. “Our Son” becomes something different and far more exciting when it lets Nicky and Gabriel spin off into their own individual arcs. When not force-fitting themselves into the prescribed roles of a child-rearing heterosexual union, they can reckon with what it means to be a single gay man in a radically different world. The change proves welcoming, even if it cannot entirely erase the rote relationship drama that preceded it.
Oliver and Nickowitz’s script fails Billy Porter as it shape-shifts. He receives far less screen time and thus far more simplistic treatment of his gaping wounds. “Our Son,” writes off his hang-ups to nebulously defined daddy issues, which drop out of the blue in a conversation with his mother (Phylicia Rashad). It’s a box-checking character beat, especially when comparing his polite sidelining to what the script gives Evans to work with.
Gabriel knows what he wants from the moment of their son Owen’s (Christopher Woodley) birth. Befitting the more traditionally maternal figure in the marriage, he becomes a parent instantly. It’s not so easy for Nicky, a book publisher who sees his contribution to the family as a provider more than a nurturer. He must come to accept his role as a father through extensive practical, even legal, means. Especially after a revealing conversation, he shares with his own father, the film gradually reveals the many layers of Nicky’s doubts and despair. Fear lies at the root of most of his indecision, though the film never makes it out to be a one-size-fits-all solution.
It’s Evans who gets to play out some of the most poignant moments in “Our Son,” which not so coincidentally center around his position not just as a man but as a gay man. There’s a wistfulness to Evans, one of the first major gay leading men in major studio entertainment, taking on his first role, grappling so openly with sexuality and identity as he enters middle age. This meta element matches nicely with Nicky’s insecurities as a character about his graying. He’s sensing a door closing on a chapter of his life where some unfinished business still resides.
Nowhere does this become more dramatically fraught than a third-act club encounter with the provocatively dressed and beguilingly made-up Solo (Isaac Powell). This young man living so openly and unapologetically in his queerness activates a sense of regret for squishing himself into a tight box of acceptability. Or maybe it’s a fit of desire where he wants to leech off his unbridled youthfulness as he feels his own slipping away. Perhaps there’s some element of parenting instincts rearing their head as he prepares to relinquish some control over Owen.
Evans stews in this delicious ambiguity. In his graceful, gentle portrayal of the character, he can be all of these things – often at once. The world is just beginning for Nicky, even as some doors are closing. “Our Son” deserves to open as many doors for Evans as it does for the character he plays. When given the space to explore the knottiness of being a gay man in a world taking but tentative steps toward recognizing the community’s full humanity, Luke Evans provides the complex representation that audiences are craving. [C+]
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