Word: renee
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Directed by Norman Rene...
Craig Lucas and Norman Rene have taken an important first step in the process, and their work should be considered a great success. They have managed to create a film that is extremely moving and powerful. And surprisingly enough, it is also sweet, funny and enjoyable--well worth the two hours on a summer evening...
Social workers used to believe that all an adopted child needed was a loving home. But now many admit that even the most committed parents may be overwhelmed by unexpected problems. In 1986 Dan and Rhonda Stanton adopted a blond baby girl they named Stacey Rene. "We thought we had a perfect baby because she didn't cry," says Dan, an insurance agent in suburban Dallas. Their contentment faded as the months passed and Stacey did not develop properly. She didn't babble and laugh like their friends' babies and couldn't pinch with her individual fingers. The tentative diagnosis...
Still, you should listen up about Longtime Companion. For it is a splendidly bitchy comedy, The Women crossed with The Big Chill. Also a soap opera, a horror movie and a how-to manual on coping with catastrophe. On a small budget, writer Craig Lucas and director Norman Rene (who teamed just as productively on the Broadway comedy Prelude to a Kiss) have created a beguiling panorama. It spans the '80s, a decade that, for gay men and those who love them, took a fatal tailspin from high camp to tragedy. The film is a juggling act -- of characters, attitudes...
...What do you think happens when we die?" "We get to have sex again." Lucas and Rene know AIDS is not God's punishment for having sex, and their film is not afraid to show gay men being randily affectionate toward one another. But Longtime Companion represents no special pleading for gays; it is about any group of people who might get blindsided by a plague. Thanks to a terrific ensemble cast (including, in addition to the above, Dermot Mulroney, Mary-Louise Parker and Patrick Cassidy), these people are quirky, compassionate, plenty human. You are encouraged to laugh along with...