Big Screen Seattle

Director: Drew Emery

*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.

This Seattle based film may be the most emotionally stirring documentary I have ever witnessed. I must admit to tears 2 or 3 different times over the almost 2 hours. Perhaps the most surprising element of this powerful documentary is its simple (almost mundane) subject matter: a group of regular people talking about the people they love.

The hook to most documentaries is some extraordinary event (historical or personal), or a look into a world that is exotic, foreign, surprising or unknown in some way – something we have never seen before. By contrast the subject matter of Inlaws and Outlaws, ordinary falling in love, is extremely well known to us all and the stories are told with few starling events, nothing shocking, nothing in fact that you probably have not heard (or actually experienced) before. Yet the stories carry an impact that is emotionally overpowering.

Inlaws and Outlaws documents the relationships of a number of couples, mostly gay and lesbian, and has each simply tell their story of love. What is extraordinary is the courage some of the couples displayed by laying their most intimate emotions before the camera. You leave feeling you have witnessed what is most beautiful in humanity.

Further, the film is frequently hilarious and always entertaining. The director, Drew Emery, has inserted poignant musical pieces (performed by a jazz singer and band in a night club setting) to set up each new segment while allowing us to think about what has come before. Further, the musical devise divides the talk into the different parts of the relationships. And the final scene where the singer performs “Our Love Is Here To Stay” and we slowly realize the crowd dancing is made up of the couples from the film provides an unexpected and perfect closing to their stories and this powerful film.

Some of the couple we meet:
A lesbian couple who were brought up Mormon and fought internal conflicts stemming from religious and family pressures for years before finally coming together. They had been lovers since high school but one of the two decided to marry and fake a 'traditional' life. She could not, and found the courage to put aside her guilt and family disowning to be with her true love.

There is an older man whose lover recently died after 50 years together. They found it necessary to remain closeted their entire lives with many friends thinking they were brothers. Also having grown up in an abusive household he tells how his father would have literally killed him if his homosexuality was discovered. The depth and beauty of their relationship is clear as he talks of their life together, and it is impossible not to cry when he speaks of David’s death.

There are a couple of older lesbian couples who tell simple yet beautiful stories of love. And it is these older couples that are most powerful and which brought me to tears. Why? Perhaps because you feel their love is most pure somehow. They have left behind social pressures such as marriage or children, have moved beyond superficialities of beauty or status, and have come together simply and purely for love. (That all may be complete bullshit which I am projecting onto these couples, but the feeling that their love is coming from a place most genuine remains with me.) And any film that can project that kind of beauty and make you feel that pure goodness of love is more than entertainment, it is life inspiring and emotionally cathartic.

There is a sad and still raw story of a divorce initiated by a husband who accepted he was gay in his 40s after years of marriage and children.

And then there is the young lesbian couple that is held up as the hero couple of the film – the hero relationship (in social terms). No, not because their love is any more strong or they had to overcome anything more difficult; rather because their relationship is the most easy and accepted, the most 'ordinary' of the gay relationships. They met, fell in love and got married in a traditional ceremony surround by friends and family and live together happily as wife and wife. Their relationship is the point of the film – this is how it should be but how it is not. It is a human rights message of the radical ordinary – I dare you to see these loving couples and maintain their love deserves any less recognition than straight love; I dare you to find the difference between the heterosexual and homosexual relationships.

Should you see it? Absolutely, you will find what is most beautiful in humanity.

# posted by Jerry in Seattle @ Monday, June 27, 2005