One of the many reasons I find myself drawn to stories about human sexuality is how relevant they are, especially in the modern age. For many reasons, all arrogant and ignorant, people choose to ignore the natural chaos of humanity and struggle to retain a "traditional" definition of sexuality. This unreasonable and unhealthy behavior continues to cause trauma, misery, and in some cases, death. I admit, this is not a pleasant thing to acknowledge, but it is essential nonetheless. Because without understanding the unstable state of perception some people have regarding sexuality, it would be challenging to appreciate movies like Stage Mother, a film that must be seen by as many people as humanly possible. Because despite a few technical hiccups, which I will get to momentarily, this film is an inspiration for the hopeful.
The story follows an elder woman named Maybelline (Jacki Weaver), a church choir director from Texas whose son, Ricky, is a drag queen in San Francisco. Maybelline, on insistence from her husband, hasn't spoken to her son for years. One day, Maybelline receives the unfortunate news that her son died of an overdose. Grief-stricken, Maybelline flies to San Francisco to attend his funeral, where she meets her late son's fellow drag queens and surrogate family, including his partner, Nathan (Adrian Grenier). It turns out that the two of them have been running a night club/drag show stage but is now loosing patrons. Because Ricky and Nathan were not married, Maybelline inherits Ricky's possessions, including the club. Maybelline decides that she needs to make up for her mistakes and offers to help revitalize the club in her son's honor. Along the way, she learns a few valuable lessons and passes them on to those who need them the most.
Stage Mother is a beautiful story with relevant themes to boot. Although it might take some time for a few characters to grow on you, they are ultimately likable when they do. A fascinating aspect of this story is that no one opposing the drag queens is necessarily evil, just misguided. It presents some of the more unfortunate aspects of modern society and how we can potentially fix them. Also, occasional moments of Maybelline being the awesome bad-ass mother-figure a lot of people need.
My only real problem with the film is its terrible sound design. For some reason, vast chunks of the regular dialogue, especially with Maybelline, are either improperly recorded or delivered too softly. The scenes with the drag queens performing on stage sound just fine, but when it transitions to the quieter moments, which there are a decent amount of in this movie, I had to turn the volume up on my TV much more than usual. Only for it to blast out when it got to another stage segment. I can't tell if this is the result of soft line delivery or audio recording that was not correctly calibrated. Whoever was in charge of sound for this film should not quit his/her day job.
Despite the sound snafus, Stage Mother is a beautiful film that provides a valuable lesson. It is sweet, witty, entertaining, and as relevant as it can get. Do not miss this one.
Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm, thank you all for reading.
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