Any Mother's Son

I'm starting to wonder why, every time Bonnie Bedelia gives a performance on the small screen, they don't give her an Emmy immediately. Her style of film acting is so perfectly suited to the television medium, her effects so perfectly judged, her work so intelligent and tasteful and felt, that it can hardly be improved upon. This performance, in a perfectly terrific part, is no exception.

The story itself is absorbing, and the script and direction give it its head and get out of its way -- not the easiest of tasks, given the conventions of television. There are conventions in this version, of course: (1) The presumably composite character of the unsympathetic relative who feels no sympathy for her deceased cousin if he's gay, wants it proved that he is not, and basically views the whole sorry mess as a shameful misfortune to her personally: a drama of which she is the center. That's a convention of these TV movies, but a useful one. Then there is (2) the music nudging our emotional reactions, probably unnecessarily.

But the relative is well-played and the music isn't particularly bombastic. The movie has great dignity, in fact, and all the acting is superb. Moreover, Bedelia is the center of it all, and with Bonnie Bedelia at the center of a story, the center always holds. Bravo!