Alan Cumming’s
Film Promises
“Any Day Now”
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
You may not have realized
it, watching Alan Cumming play a tough-minded political strategist on TV’s “The Good Wife,” but he looks
good in a dress.
In “Any Day Now” – one of
the entries in this week’s Key West Film Festival – Cumming portrays a down-on-his-luck
drag queen who, along
with his new lover, fights to parent a throwaway kid afflicted with Down
syndrome.
“Nobody wants a short,
fat, mentally handicapped kid,” we’re told. But Rudy and Paul do.
“What you see is what you
get,” warns a doctor who examines the boy.
But these two coming-together
guys see a smiling 14-year-old who “didn’t ask to be born to a junkie, didn’t
ask to be different, didn’t ask for none of this.”
And when Family Services
tries to take the boy away from this gay couple, they fight back in the courts.
After all, Paul is an assistant district attorney who studied law hoping to
change the world.
It’s all about Marco. Despite
being handicapped, he’s a sweet kid who loves chocolate donuts and stories with
a happy ending.
But this takes place in
1979 when gay parenting was frowned on in California and most other places. And
remember, this movie is “based on a true story.”
“This
was so impossible in the 1970s – and, more recently, I’ve had two sets of
friends who have run into problems,” says Cumming, an activist at heart.
“Any Day Now” was co-written
and directed by Travis Fine. An actor who once gave up show biz to become an
airlines pilot, this is his seventh outing as a director – and finally he may
have struck gold.
Fine says, “I’m a
straight guy who lives in the suburbs with three quote-unquote normal kids in a
cul-de-sac, so what’s my connection and why did I care about telling this
story? I really wanted to tell a story – not necessarily about gay rights or gay
adoption – but about people who have love to give. And why should we stop
anybody from giving or receiving love? Losing love is not necessarily a gay
issue; it’s a human issue.”
The original screenplay
was written back in the late ’70s. “A writer named George Arthur Bloom knew
this guy Rudy who lived in the neighborhood over on Atlantic Avenue here in
Brooklyn and who kinda looked after this kid, and he was inspired enough to
write this story about this character Rudy. We sort of took that script and
rehabbed it, rebuilt it, as you would an old house, and brought it up to the story
I wanted to tell. A story that would ultimately move people and also at the
same time make a bit of a statement about who should be allowed to determine
who’s allowed to love.”
Alan Cumming points to a couple who invested in “Any Day Now.” The same sex
couple sued the state of Florida to allow them to adopt the kids they had been
fostering for many years and won the case. Cumming says they were on the set a
lot with the kids. He calls them “incredibly inspiring.”
However, this film hits even
closer to home.
Always tackling difficult
subjects, Key West’s Anne O’Shea acted as an executive producer for “Any Day
Now.” As you will recall, she’s already helped bring movies to the screen about
sperm donors and lesbian couples and whistleblowers and divorce.
Anne has a cameo as Mrs.
Lowell.
What’s more, La Te Da’s Randy
Roberts has a nice role in “Any Day Now” as a performer known as PJ.
But this is Alan
Cumming’s movie. His star power shines as he camps about in a flamboyant drag
show, sings torch songs in a nightclub, rages about social injustices in a
courtroom, and cries over a little boy lost. As a T-shirt he wears in the movie
proclaims: Great Performer. Yes, his portrayal of Rudy Donatello is
Oscar-worthy.
“A
part like this comes along once in a lifetime,” notes Cumming. “It challenged
me as an actor – and I got to sing in it. To be in a movie that’s about
something is so important – and I feel so personally connected to this.”
He
adds, “Bring your hankies, it’s really
intense."
Co-star Garrett Dillahunt
is properly conflicted as Paul Fleiger, the assistant DA who’s afraid of
“kicking open the closet door.” With his mop of hair and seventies wardrobe, he
has to come to terms with his sexuality while fighting against a gay-biased
court system.
You’ve seen Dillahunt in
everything from “No Country for Old Men” to TV’s “Raising Hope,” “Winter’s
Bone” to TV’s “Burn Notice,” “Looper” to TV’s “Memphis Beat.” But here his role
cries for a Best Supporting Actor nod.
Nevertheless, the cast
member who steals the show is young Isaac Leyva, a real-life Down syndrome kid
who tugs at your heart with his wide swooping smile, subtle shift of his eyes
behind oversized glasses, and a waddling gait while clutching the blondie doll that
he’s named Ashley.
Travis Fine says Isaac
was “exceptional to work with.” The director adds, “He very much gets what’s
going on around him.”
Alan Cumming calls the
boy “amazing.” “Working with Isaac, his joy or despair or anything he was
feeling was completely on the surface and completely in the moment. It was a
child-like thing. And I think acting should be like that.”
Why
would a drag queen step up to the plate for an abandoned handicapped kid? “He’s
got a sense that Marco is an outsider, just as he is,” says Cumming. “He
recognizes him as someone who is being pushed aside and that’s something he
responds to. He’s got a strong sense of what’s right, of decency.”
Alan
Cumming identified with his role. “So much of me is in this movie. It’s rare
that I get the chance to let my actual personality come through. When I smile
with Isaac, that’s actually very close to me. I mean, you always look like you
– but for your spirit to be able to come through is rare. I didn’t realize how
much it had come through until I saw the film.”
Something
of a gay icon, Scottish-born Alan Cumming has played everything from the androgynous
Emcee in Broadway’s revival of “Cabaret” to Hamlet and Macbeth on stage to
villains in the “X-Men” and “Spy Kids” movies.
“Families can come in different shapes and sizes and different genders, the
most important thing is making the child feel safe and secure,” observes
Cumming. “Whatever that version of the family is, that should be respected,
there is a political and social message that I hope people come away with.”
Adoption by same-sex parents
is still illegal in almost a dozen American states.
srhoades@aol.com
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