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Stonewall (2015)

By Golu
Taking a very important and crucial moment in gay rights history and reducing it to mere background for a coming-of-age story is not cool. The title and the trailer of the film creates expectations from the viewers, especially the ones who had witnessed the ordeal but alas! To be honest, I have not seen many films on the subject, so I am no expert to say whether the said events are shown to reality or not, but I can still very confidently say that, the title should have been used to make a better film with more facts.

Danny, is a small town Indiana boy who arrives to New York after he is discovered to be having an affair with his football team-mate. Danny’s father who is the coach can’t deal with it and the boy is exiled. He arrives on Christopher Street in Greenwich village and is befriended by Ray, an androgynous, who slowly starts falling in love with Danny. He also gets support from other trans members and hustlers (mostly street living LGBT members). The entire group hangs around the The Stonewall Inn, a mob-owned bar that was regularly raided by the police. This is where in June 1969, one such raid sparked riots by the patrons that lasted several days. Danny meets Trevor who he likes and even moves in with him. Trevor is a gay activist whose team is working towards getting LGBT members their rights. But soon Danny realises that he was just another guy for Trevor. We continue to witness the problems & heartaches of mostly the LGBt street hustlers and by the time the actual riot in Stonewall is sparked, its already too late for any of us to really care.

Stonewall has been billed as the story of a young gay man’s political awakening, and there insetting wrong with that. But then why promote a film with such a title. I, for once, expected more about the actual incident with a lot more facts than fiction. The riots are tucked away in the last 20 minutes, delivered almost as an after-thought to Danny’s character development. There are many sub-plots of other characters, which didn’t really add too much to the soul of the film. Danny acts well, but the scene stealer of the film is Ray, a charismatic portrayal of the triumphs of the trans community and the struggles they faced at that time. Attempting to do right by history, the actual facts have been complicated rather than clearly showing why the cops chose to raid the Stonewall Inn on June 28, and why the lesbians and female-attired trans clientele finally decided to rebel against the harassment they’d been getting from all sides.

Is not a bad movie per say, it really isn’t it but using such an important historical event and turning it into just a backdrop for a regular coming-of-age story is just not ok. (6/10)
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