Amor Por Direito

This film tells the story of a well respected and very competent police officer in New Jersey, who fights against the county to give her pension to her partner after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

It is really beyond me that "Freeheld" is not getting any award nominations. It is way more touching, captivating and engrossing than the other film that is getting a lot of attention. Julianne Moore is superb in the film. Steve Carell is very good as well, he is likable as the flamboyant activist. The story is so touching that I literally kept reaching out for tissues to wipe my tears and blow my nose. I thoroughly enjoyed the film!

The movie was inspired by the Oscar winning documentary and several of the real life folks have cameos in the film. Julianne Moore and Ellen Page play a couple that falls in love and then deals with a cancer diagnosis and then a fight for a police pension after twenty three years of service to be granted to her domestic partner. Well done as some of the characters you truly begin to despise over the course of the film. It's always good to be on the right side of history.

Based on a true story and a 2008 Academy Award winning short documentary with the same title, Freeheld is a heart-wrenching and uplifting drama about a same-sex couple's relentless pursuit of love, justice and equality.

When a veteran police officer Laurel Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer, all she wants to do is leave her pension benefits to her life partner, Stacie, so that she can afford to keep their house. Laurel is told no since they are not husband and wife. After spending a lifetime fighting for justice for other people, Laurel launches a final battle for justice for the love of her life.

The story is told in a straightforward manner. The first half of the film focuses on depicting Laurel as a dedicated police officer who dreads her colleagues finding out that she is a lesbian and as an average human being who longs for love and strives to start a family with "a house, a dog and a woman she loves". In a homophobic workplace, LGBTI people have to hide and lie since coming out of the closet makes them targets of bullying and affects their promotion. Apprehensive and timorous, Laurel can never truly be herself. The second half of the film focuses on the couple's brave but bitter fight against not only cancer, but also tradition, prejudice, ignorance and inequality, luckily and touchingly with the help of Laurel's colleague, a gay rights activist, the couple's friends and family members. Although some people criticize the first half of the film for being insipid, the director's refusal to resort to sentimentality is greatly appreciated. Instead of making a tear-jerker with clichés sugar-coating and praising effusively the greatness of homosexual love, the director creates life-like characters the audience care about and shows genuinely the love between Laurel and Stacie, which accurately echos the nature of the global fight for LGBTI rights. It can be summarized by what Laurel says in the movie – "I've never asked for special treatment. I'm only asking for equality." True love is beautiful and precious, be it heterosexual or homosexual.

Religion is a major reason why some freeholders say no to Laurel's request. In the movie, a priest reminds us that Jesus himself says nothing about homosexuality in the bible. Most of the proscriptions against homosexuality come from the Old Testament, which does mention homosexuality as an abomination, yet if one had actually read the Bible, one would have noticed that the same book of Leviticus also considers eating shellfish, or wearing clothing of two fabrics, an abomination. Some religious people blindly believe in what their churches advocate and apply double standard. Now, let's assume a particular religion is against homosexuality. Should religion and state be separate? For example, it is well known that Pope John Paul II was against artificial birth control. Should there be a law prohibiting citizens from using condoms? If Buddhists deemed it wrong to kill animals, should the government make eating meat illegal? If homosexuals cannot get married just because it goes against your religion, you cannot have cookies because I'm on diet. It seems that some pious people are not aware of a fact that marriage is a legal system which does not belong to a particular religion. While freedom of religion should be totally respected, it is unacceptable to impose religious beliefs on both the legal system and non-believers. Indeed, the overarching theme of the Bible is love. Mother Teresa is right. "If you judge people, you have no time to love them".

The ensemble cast is capable. Julianne Moore and Ellen Page are phenomenal. Their facial expressions and body language can effectively convey the characters' emotions. In the movie, we do not see the actresses. Instead, we see an ailing police officer and a car mechanic truly loving each other and fighting together against cancer and inequality. Michael Shannon also delivers a very convincing performance. His character is a "straight, white, ex-Protestant, atheist cop". The wholehearted support he has given Laurel is sincere and moving. Steve Carell, who plays the gay rights activist, adds comic relief to this knuckle-biting and heartbreaking journey. His performance in Foxcatcher is beyond compare though.

Love is love. LGBTI people "deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise." Like Suffragette, Freeheld is an important film that needs to be seen. Never take human rights for granted. Let's speak out against injustice courageously, in the name of love.

Even though it treads a lot, and I mean it, a lot of ground that has been covered by countless films before, especially recently, "Freeheld" is a well-crafted film that has committed and passionate work behind it that manage to make it come through a lot more than it could have in many other situations.

I am baffled by Juliane Moore honestly, that is the first and only thing that comes off the top of my head thinking of the film. She is so talented it is ridiculous. Because even if this is a performance that we have seen so many times before, even by Moore herself last year, she still manages to make it fu**ing interesting, new and genuine. This actress is a legend really. Right from her way of moving on screen she just lives and breathes the characters she is given and makes them so much more of what is on paper, which is also the main reason this film succeeds.

Because the film does recycle a lot. Both in ideas and style. It fits right into the streak of true story films that we have had in recent years and doesn't really emerge. It doesn't have a personal stamp, it doesn't really say anything special or new and what it says it really throws in your face without space for a more subtle or emotional narrative. As always with true story movies it gets deep into manipulating your emotions by pulling very, very easy heartstrings and doesn't make an attempt at trying to make a movie first before a recounting of the true story.

Yet, you feel that much of it, despite being standard, is truly heartfelt by the cast. Micheal Shannon is really, really good, Ellen Page doesn't always find her place on screen, but still manages to come off as the very good actress she is.

So in the end what we have is something that excites and moves in a way too conventional and seen-before way, that comes off as a pleasant experience thanks to its actors' commitment. I will never, ever watch this film again, but I will also never regret having seen it.

Ten years before same sex marriage became legal in this country, a police detective from Ocean County New Jersey (played by Julianne Moore) fights for the rights of her domestic partner (played by Ellen Page) to receive her police pension before she dies of lung cancer.

The movie does have everything, as it goes over the life of Laurel Hester. It starts out as a police drama, as we watch Hester and her partner (on the force)Dane Wells tracked down a murderer. We see how good of a cop she is and how much that means to the community. Then it becomes a romance, as Hester meets Stacie and the two start a lovely relationship, slightly tainted by the fact Hester, a "woman in a man's field" wants and needs to keep her personal life a secret even from the work husband relationship she has with detective Wells. Than it's a political drama as Hester has no choice but to become the poster child for same sex marriage as she fights for what is owed to her and what is best for the one she loves.

Yeah, the movie is laid out perfectly, pushing all the right buttons that get liberals all worked up, and filled with note worthy dialog to try to convince the unconvinced of the cause they are presenting. They show you how the other half feels about the topic, but then they visually beat you over the head with little trivial items that show how old white men are too stubborn and set in their ways (my favorite was one of the Freeholders that would decide about the benefits is wearing a small but noticeable cross as a pin on his suit)

I feel the movie may have depended too much on their facts, and when it came to their opinion, they did a lackluster job of showing emotion. Julianne Moore is a great actress and the movie has that going for it. Ellen Page also gives a nice performance especially when she shares a scene with Moore. Micheal Shannon is a far better actor than this movie gives him credit for. I feel that they could have done more with him, but his only real acting spar was Steve Carrel, who played a Jewish lawyer that herd about the Hester case and brilliantly used it to get the point across for gay marriage.

It's a good movie, but it's only a good movie because they talk about a great topic. I would have like them to have done more with what they had and show more emotion about what's going on.