The Twilight of the Golds

This film was touching. It will make people question their beliefs and raises a lot of moral questions. The casting was very well choosen. Bredan Fraser does a wonderful job of playing a gay man torn over his families dilemma of having another gay child. It is a far stretch from his boy next door image.It shows his ability to portray a wide variety of characters. His sister, played by Jennifer Beals, is pregnant with a child that may possibly be gay. Her and her husband find out, through genetic testing, that their unborn child may grow up to be gay. Her family tries to help her decide if she should keep the child. Since David ( Fraser) is gay he causes his family to deal with the issue in a way they are not prepared to do. His family does not want to make this child suffer as David has. It will make you question yourself as to if there are somethings better off not to know. For instance is genetic testing for such things right and what would you do in that situation? I think this movie is worth watching.

This bold, worrying dramatic comedy embarks upon the concern of a thus far fictional form of genetic testing that would ascertain the sexual orientation, among other things of course, of an unborn child. When Suzanne Gold-Stein, played by the beautiful Jennifer Beals, is told by her disconcerted husband that their son is destined to be gay, she contemplates aborting the fetus, much to the pent-up rage and panic of her gay brother, a normally happy-go- lucky creative whose sexual orientation has never been completely accepted and certainly never embraced by the Gold family.

The story gallantly hits on the nature and wrongful persecution of homosexuals. Early in the story, one can hardly believe how dramatic the Gold family's reaction is when the genetic discovery is made, how they can hardly say the word "gay," something one of their own flesh and blood naturally is. It's a very scary story, one that threatens humanity with itself, knowingly projecting a nightmarish perception of what may come when we truly make a technological breakthrough that actually benefits civilization, telling a fortunate story of a mere handful of characters who learn true acceptance, and not all of them do, for it just might be hopeless to end the neverending, inexplicable prejudice that plagues our progression and co-existence.

When a pastor, for instance, claims that if everyone were gay, there would be no society, he must also reflect upon the idea that if everyone were a pastor, there would be no society due to the vow of chastity. In fact, if everyone had in common any sort of orientation, there would be no society because everyone would be essentially the same. That is what is so scary about the film's suggested prediction of genetic testing for pregnancy. If people can successfully and knowingly avoid having gay, biracial, handicapped, autistic, or any other sort of a parent's less than preferable idea of a baby, society will slowly disappear.

To deny not only the rights and acceptance of homosexuals, but to also deny them existence, is to deny those of the countless gay and bi people of notoriety who've contributed so much to culture: social reformer Jane Addams, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, writers Edward Albee, James Baldwin, Alan Ball, Djuna Barnes, Alan Bennett, William S. Burroughs, Samuel Butler, Truman Capote, Noel Coward, Hart Crane, Quentin Crisp, Michael Cunningham, E.M. Forster, Michel Foucault, Nigel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, painters Francis Bacon, Jean-Michael Basquiat, filmmakers Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, Kenneth Anger, Marcel Carné, Jean Cocteau, George Cukor, Sergei Eisenstein, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Todd Haynes, James Ivory, Gus Van Sant, costume designer Edith Head, singers Melissa Etheridge, Billie Holiday, actors Mario Cantone, Rupert Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Stephen Fry, Nathan Lane, Charles Laughton, Anthony Rapp, composers Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Francis Poulenc, Stephen Sondheim, Tchaikovsky, actresses Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Cherry Jones, Jodie Foster, Mayor of West Hollywood John Duran, et cetera. The more we "straight" people socialize with, give birth to, and acknowledge the historically positive effect of homosexuals, there will be more of a face given to the gay, bisexual, and lesbian community. We will see that they are of the same nature, fears, and hardships as the rest of us. The movie's hypothesis scares me that that face could be taken away.

If only this incredible story had been supplied with a stronger sense of production value. It feels like a TV movie. It isn't given any atmosphere or visceral power, which would have done wonders for it. The cast is great, most memorably Brendan Fraser, although Faye Dunaway is miscast. She does not seem at home in her role as Fraser's mother. It seems more of an Anne Bancroft role, for instance. The constant use of David Bowie's Under Pressure on the soundtrack seems exchangeable with so many other pop songs, the camera-work is simple point-and-shoot lack of precision and if certain things like that were given more attention, this could have been a really great film.

I found this film to be very offensive, because it make the "homosexual" seem to be a "disease" that people should try to stop. No matter what anyone's child is, the mother and father should love them no matter what, even though the happy ending makes everyone think that she's the good one for what she chooses, but still...she's not because of even the thought of having an abortion knowing how the kid will turn out in a few years is bad 'parenting' or whatever you want to call it. I felt that the ending was to unreal, this is the 90s and people hold grudges, if this was a true story I don't think David would have done what he did at the end, EVEN though it was touching and good because everyone wants to see family's together at the end. Call me stupid and wrong, but I think that he really would have not done what he did at the end, knowing that he might not be here on earth if they had this kind of technology back then when he was born. I know that's wrong, but it's true. Faye Dunaway was excellent, as was Brendan Fraser.

All and all, I liked this movie, even though it was kind of pathetic and offensive.

A suburban Jewish family with a married daughter and a gay son (Jennifer Beals and Brendan Fraser, respectively) have their ups and downs until the film poses the question: What would you do if you knew your child would almost certainly be gay? Though most enlightened people would say DUH!! What's the difference?, this story takes the premise and goes with it.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GOLDS is a made-for-Showtime film, and not of theatrical quality. This is unfortunate, as it would have made an excellent theatrical release. The cast is good, but performances are a bit scattered. Somehow, Faye Dunaway doesn't hit me as the Jewish Mother type. But Brendan Fraser can do no wrong. If I wasn't already gay, I would turn gay for him! It was originally a play--- it would play beautifully on stage. Still, the film is worth seeing.

A couple does all kinds of genetic testing on their unborn child to make sure it has no genetic defects, diseases, etc. What they find out is that the kid is probably gay. This raises a lot of philosophical questions for the couple (the mother especially since her brother David(Brendan Fraser) is gay). The only movie I've seen that depicts both science AND organized religion in a negative light. The movie tackles several issues including how homosexuels are treated in the home and whether or not genetic testing is immoral. For that reason, this movie is definitely worth seeing. BUT Early in the film, when the test results are first revealed, I actually laughed. 'Is that all? Who cares!' were my thoughts. Then, for half the movie, the extremely annoying couple actually considers aborting the child. 'Your so annoying! Who cares?!' But see the movie anyway, it really is worth seeing.