In Uncle Frank, screening at Sundance London, Alan Ball challenges us to reflect on the building blocks of our memories and their power in shaping our life experiences and sense of belonging within family units where secrets are buried beneath the surface. Uncle Frank is now available to stream on Prime Video.
Coming out journeys are different for every individual, with the experience often wrapped in the acceptance and inclusion of the family and community, or in the isolation and oppression that can result from rejection. For many LGBTQ+ people, the barriers to self-actualisation are baked in from a young age as we quickly learn whether we will be accepted or rejected based on the culture surrounding us. This process has undoubtedly become more comfortable over the past twenty years. However, many still find family and community relationships the most significant challenge they face when coming out.
These challenges are even more complex to navigate within households where toxic masculinity, religious oppression, and sexism are allowed to flow freely. This leads many members of the LGBTQ+ community to choose to escape their hometowns for the freedom and anonymity of a big city. And it is here, where Alan Ball’s assured and powerful road trip movie Uncle Frank finds its unique and compelling voice.
The film opens in the sweltering summer of South Carolina in 1969, as a family gathers to celebrate the birthday of their patriarch, Daddy Mac (Stephen Root). Mac controls all those around him through a toxic atmosphere of oppression. However, for Beth (Sophia Lillis), her attention is fixed on the isolated yet free figure of her Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany), whose free-thinking, liberal, and educated demeanour is at odds with the neo-conservative men around him.
Frank’s presence is neither welcomed nor accepted by her grandfather, who sneers at her uncle at every opportunity while spouting barbed comments. But for Beth, Frank is engaging, modern and fascinating, and her conversations with him are enlightening, diverse and intelligent.
Frank is an English lecturer in New York, and his brief input into Beth’s life sparks her desire to leave her small, conservative town for university. Four years later, Beth enrols at NYU as an English major and is excited by the prospect of getting to know her Uncle Frank better. However, on deciding to gatecrash one of Frank’s legendary weekend parties with her new boyfriend, Beth finds herself warmly greeted into the apartment by the effervescent Wally (Peter Macdissi). Despite Frank’s initial unwillingness to discuss his love life, Beth quickly puts two and two together as Wally welcomes her into a world of new experiences and people.
Just as Beth’s eyes are opened to the real Uncle Frank and his long-term relationship with Wally, news reaches them of her grandfather’s death, and the trio embark on a road trip South for the wake. However, the truth behind her uncle’s turbulent relationship with his father is far darker than Beth could imagine. As they travel, secrets are aired as Uncle Frank finally lays to rest the ghosts of his past, with his oppressive father now gone.
Uncle Frank is rooted in the pain and trauma of oppression and hate, as Frank’s escape from his family life is unpicked with each mile travelled. Here, Paul Bettany offers us a genuinely electrifying performance as the darkness of a past Frank tried to escape bubbles to the surface. The road trip we embark on is one rooted in healing, revelation, self-forgiveness and rebirth, as emotions held hostage for our entire lives are set free.
Just as with American Beauty and Six Feet Under, Alan Ball challenges us to reflect on the building blocks of our memories and their power in shaping our life experiences and sense of belonging within family units where secrets are buried beneath the surface. While Uncle Frank may speak directly to the experiences of gay life in ‘70s America, its themes continue to reflect those of many LGBTQ+ people today – his healing journey, one that many find themselves embarking on as they reach later life.
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