Bill Oliver's OUR SON is a fine drama, telling the story of a gay couple whose marriage comes to an end, and their subsequent custody battle over the young son whom they fathered via IVF.
In a time when homosexuality is still illegal in some areas of the world, and there is still a large percentage of those in the West who oppose gay marriage and view the LBGTQ community as "other," what Oliver (and his co-writer, Peter Nickowitz) present to the audience is that gay people are simply regular folks, who go through the same day-to-day trials and tribulations as the hetero world does. If anything, OUR SON has far more in common with films like KRAMER VS. KRAMER than something like BOYS IN THE BAND. And it is that population who refuse to see the gay community as human beings just as they are who will benefit most from seeing this film.
Luke Evans is excellent in the lead, managing to paint a complex portrait of a man who is a driven professional, but who also loves his husband and son deeply, but who perhaps comes to that realization too late. Billy Porter gives an equally fine turn as the estranged spouse, who has found that fatherhood awakened something inside of him that he wasn't aware of previously. The rest of the supporting cast is excellent, with nary a false note among them.
There are no heroes or villains in this film, just regular people trying to cope with the same roadblocks that life seems to throw in our path randomly. Highly recommended.
