This was a first-rate and powerful drama on a topic that can, albeit understandably, be dealt with in an aggressively partisan way. Here the strength of the drama was that all participants were, if not all shown wholly sympathetically, treated with restraint and respect. This was certainly the case with Jared’s parents, who genuinely loved their son, had a good and strong relationship and believed that what they were doing was in his best interests. At one level it was as much about the parents’ relationship and how that changed. And with Jared, we were aware that we were seeing him growing up and maturing as an individual but not wholly defined by his sexuality and inner struggles. I liked the touch that Jared was often seen wearing white.
The changing parental relationships was finely done and the sparing use of flashbacks was highly effective in filling out the drama. Likewise, the slow pacing made the impact far greater and reflected the thoughtful and measured approach to the topic. It would have been too easy to make the visual style flashy and aggressively over-emphatic, which such stories often lend themselves to. In such approaches, the characters would have been cartoonishly simply drawn but here, dramatic respect was given to all, helped by the fact that the movie was based on intimate personal experiences.
The worst aspect of the film was the drearily predictable and intrusive music. In spite of this though, this was one of the best explorations of this painful topic that I have seen.