The Matthew Shepard Story

The subject matter of this film was fairly abstract to me until I saw this film. You read the story of the murder and the trial, but somehow you don't get a clear picture of what really happened.

This is a heart breaking film. Some of us tend to judge America by its awful Capital Punishment laws, its brutality, its terrible president and we can forget that there are people working against these horrors. It is people like Stockard Channing and if my eyes didn't deceive me Goldie Hawn (executive producer) who can help make you reconsider what is happening there.

What was on trial in this film was humanity itself and against all the odds humanity won over. Lets hope that George Bush and his reactionary government will accidentally see this film one night when they have something better to do. That's my fantasy and like the film's ultimate hope I'll stick to it.

Then my crying after the movie was completely justified. I had no idea! I did not really follow the entire case (scary, huh? especially since I *am* gay and was in school -- okay, graduate school) which is probably why I didn't get caught up with the story, back then or subsequently.

I'm glad NBC decided to air the movie (which does not surprise me, since "Will & Grace" is also aired on the same network, as are several other shows with gay characters).

I liked the acting in it very much -- Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston were really good. Shane Meier (sidebar: yum!) was excellent and convincing and really knew how to elicit sympathy from the viewer. I hope this comes out on video or gets packaged for sale on video soon. I am not a human rights or gay rights expert, or even activist, by any stretch of the imagination, and will not pretend to be one now, but the movie really was quite human and tugs at your heartstrings. Clearly, for other than sentimental reasons, this is a good movie to have been made and aired -- perhaps in some small way, it would contribute to fair and respectful treatment of others who are of a different persuasion altogeter.

The night I saw this movie, I had no idea it was going to be on. I don't remember seeing any promotion for it - and wonder how many people actually watched it.

On that same note, I really didn't know much about Matthew either. I'm a gay male, who's grown up in Canada all my life. I remember when it happened, reading it in the newspaper. Talking about it one night, but not knowing anything about it other than that it had happened.

I've read a few reviews on this movie, most of them saying this movie doesn't portray Matthew enough, that he lacks presence in the movie. I disagree.

At the end of the two hour special, I was in tears.

If you haven't heard, the Matthew Shepard story is a true story about a young man from Laramie, Wyoming who is beaten to death by two men - because he is gay.

The movie mainly focuses on his parents, played wonderfully by Sam Waterston and Stockard Channing - a year after his death and how they are dealing with the trial. Should they, or shouldn't they ask for the death penalty for his killers. Matthew appears <in a lot of the film> in flashbacks that show you most of his adult life.

You see him leaving for Switzerland while his parents are working in Saudi Arabia, learn that he is raped in Morocco <on a class trip>, comes back to Laramie, moves to Denver for awhile and comes back - only to be lured away by his two killers.

It's a great film, that managed to keep me interested for the entire two hours. Matthew was so innocent, and I can't believe things like this actually still happen.

If you haven't seen, I hope they'll run it again some time. It really is something to see. To watch how innocent he was at it all is really sad. As I said, I was crying - which is something I don't usually do at a TV show. I strongly recommend it, not only for it's true portrayal of this family's grief but to also learn that people's lives are taken away for such stupid reasons.

Matthew's become sort of a gay icon in North America, I can see why.

RY

Essentially, this should be looked upon as a sort of companion piece to "The Laramie Project" - which also came out in the same year and dealt with the Mathew Shepard murder. The other movie adopted a documentary- style approach as it deals with the impact of the murder of Mathew Shepard on the town of Laramie, Wyoming, while this one offered a dramatization of the events. "The Mathew Shepard Story" does offer a fairly graphic and hard to watch portrayal right off the top of Mathew's murder (made even more graphic by the fact that some of it was shot in slow motion.) The movie then switches back and forth in two directions. We watch Mathew's parents (played very well by Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston) as they deal with their son's death, and particularly how they deal with an upcoming victim impact statement that has to be made and as they wrestle with whether or not to demand the death penalty for Mathew's murderer. Waterston especially was impressive as he portrayed Mathew's father making the victim impact statement. The emotion he offered up seemed both real and raw and was very moving to watch. We also watch snippets of Mathew's life, his struggles to come to terms with being gay, some of the hardships he had to deal with because he was gay, and finally how he was lured into the trap his killers set for him. Shane Meier did a great job with the role of Mathew.

I was a little bit surprised to discover that this was a Canadian movie, and it was a good one, which seemed to offer a fitting portrayal of Mathew's life.

I watched The Matthew Shepard Story on the same night that The Laramie Project was being shown and I purposely watched it in fits and starts, switching back and forth between the two. The opening minutes of The Matthew Shepard Story were almost more than I could bear.I switched back quickly to the more sanitized version of Matt's torture and brutal murder - where he was an off-screen presence - where the absolute horror of that night was not played out in front of your eyes. It is the real story of that night which proved to be the images which still stay with me one year after the showing of the movie. The film was one that had to be made, where the viewer is allowed into the Shepard family and invited to feel their struggles to understand , to face their grief and their questions which any of us who are parents constantly face - How can we protect our children from the world full of things that can hurt them? How do you find peace in so much terror? The acting is,in my view extremely powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and Shane Meier's portrayal of Matthew tugs at your heart. I would recommend this movie highly and hope that it is available to the public at some point. It opened my heart and further opened my mind. I have not been the same since viewing it.