Bridegroom

For a while, I felt interested but a bit removed. Certainly the story is tragic, but there are so many tragic tales in the world. Certainly any homophobia is horrific, but when there are still gay men being lynched, this story seemed not nearly as dramatic and shocking as others. And its style is basic – talking head interviews with friends and family, home videos, photographs.

I thought (in my smug liberal way) that its good for the country to see a film showing how normal, likable and in love two young men could be. But this wasn't news to me. It felt rudimentary, aimed at those who had never known a gay couple and realized 'hey, they're just people'.

But then something strange happened. In the film's last half hour it built into an emotional tidal wave. I didn't realize I was hit until I suddenly started to cry. These two men were so deeply, sweetly in love, and Shane Crone, rather than simply crawl into a shell after the untimely death of the love of his life, and after being barred from the funeral by the homophobic family, and dealt many other emotional (and legal) cuts and bruises only because he and his life partner were gay, managed to rally himself, and make a you tube video that has reached millions with an impossible to argue with plea for gay marriage. That he could take this devastating loss, add mistreatment, and instead of giving up on life do something important and life affirming was profoundly affecting. Suddenly the whole film seemed to have more weight. I wept through the very moving responses his video (the one that got me is a self proclaimed life-long redneck, vowing to never oppose gay lovers again). Even the end credits full of thousands of names of those who cared enough to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for the film moved me with joy for the resilience of human beings, the fact that things are getting better, and that love is still the most powerful thing in the human experience, both in personal and political terms.

A bona fide tearjerker! I am oblivious of Shane's youtube videos, which kickstarts this feature- length picture, but the film needs to be seen by literally everyone, whether for or against the same sex equity, it is deeply heartfelt and perspicaciously educational, I think whoever as long as hold a small fraction of mercy in their hearts, regardless of their religious convictions, after watching this film, it will be a game-changer for the prejudiced and a touchstone for a mightier love above social class, creed, race, color and gender.

The documentary is about Shane and Tom, a gay couple being together for 6 years until Tom died of falling from a rooftop accidentally in 2011 (aged 29), the interviewers (Shane, his families and their friends) chart the story of their lives from Shane's childhood, his bullied school days and his struggling self-identification of being a gay man while Tom attended a first-rate high school albeit his blue-collar family background, and turned out to be an all-American boy, handsome, macho, outgoing, a role model excels both in sports and academy. After fate let them meet in L.A., their relationship epitomizes the most desiring lover-cum-soulmate perfection one could ever dream of, which causes the ensuing tragedy far more harrowing to bear.

A familiar juncture for almost every gay person, the coming-out process, particularly to Tom's parochial family, it was an incubus, which sheerly contrasts with the understandable reaction from Shane's family, however, it is all evinced secondhand by Shane and their friends, since Tom's family adopted the silent treatment to the invitation of the production team to be part of the film, surely we will never know the story from the other side, which is a minor glitch in this otherwise viscerally affecting picture.

Nevertheless, a more contingent fact is how the young soul's passing provoked much more indignation when Tom's family flagrantly shut down Shane out of the funeral and expunged their entire life together as if it never happened, it is an atrocious transgression towards our very basic canon as human beings, it is love unites us, differentiates us and sublimates us from other creatures on earth, and propels our society to move on to a better world, so even though BRIDEGROOM (which is Tom's family name, what a pertinent one!) is hardly a ground-breaking piece of art work (SMS interaction, video footages, travel photography is all it has to render the narrative aside common interviews with apt editing), it is a film should not be missed and I do hope the cost of a young life can be at least in some level compensated by awakening more conservative minds to evaluate the world with a more humane mind and encouraging more individuals to embrace their true color. Also, best wishes to Shane, you are lucky enough to experience true love and don't lose hope, live long and prosper!

As a gay man with a partner this film really struck the heart strings. It caries a powerful message that in America not all couples are equal or have equal rights. I feel this film made a big splash because of its trailer and the pre-movie video that went viral and the fact that OWN picked it up also played a factor.

On the technical side of it there were some things I didn't like hence my 8 out of 10 rating. I feel this area probably hurt the film. I am a photographer and a Director of Photography and some of the shots were so far out of the box for me that it was distracting because it wasn't pleasing to the eye such as framing, but over all great film that more people should see.

I had followed Mr. Crone's story on YouTube so I was prepared with a package of tissues when I went to the premiere. What I was not prepared for was the amazing amount of humor captured in the first half of the film. It completely disarmed my tension, and made the remarkable connection between these two men that much sweeter. The story of what happens to this couple is,for me, is as moving as the very special love they shared - their connection, their love of life, their strength, and the against-so-many-odds fact that they found each other, if only for a short while.

This film is a gift.

(I would have rated it 10 but for two edits that were so jarring I was taken out of the experience momentarily during the viewing - both came off like mid-sentence interruptions to the speaker being cut-away from)

I'm old. I'm not young like Tom and Shane. I'm fat and homely; I'm not fit and beautiful like Tom and Shane. I've never been to Egypt or Paris or Machu Picchu or any of the other marvelous places they went together. I've never been in love, never had a serious lover or a husband or a partner or a relationship anything like theirs. I've lived alone all my life.

I tend to envy and resent people who have what I don't have; so what surprises more than any of you can know is that I'm not jealous of them, at all. I don't resent their youth or their beauty or their passion or their happiness or the adventures they shared or the delight they had in each other.

From my point of view, their story is a beautiful story of REAL love, of a blessed life, a holy life together that very, very, VERY few people ever know - maybe one in a hundred million, if even that many.

At my age I tend to see things long term, not because I'm wise but only because I'm old. I can't help it. When I look at things I see them in the context of centuries, not years. So when I look at Tom and Shane I don't see tragedy; I don't see injustice; I don't see the hateful, ignorant, fearful cruelty in some of the people around them.

Like it or not, those things are ephemeral. They don't last forever. LOVE lasts forever. Joy lasts forever. Beauty lasts forever. What Shane and Tom had will last forever, because, folks, Tom is not dead in any way that matters.

Bodies die, but the persons who live in the bodies never die. Tom is as real and as alive now as he was when Shane kissed him in front of the Eiffel Tower. He left here early, but a thousand years from now that won't matter at all, because they'll have been back together a lot longer than they were apart. That's the wonderful gift this movie gives to anyone who can receive it.