Fridae

Let's put this quickly into perspective. All fags, dykes, bis and
trannies have to watch this movie for several key reasons:

1) It's an unusually quirky Christmas comedy with
terrific comic performances.

2) It's written and directed by openly gay filmmaker
Thomas Bezucha, who made his debut in 2000 with a gentle gay romance
called Big Eden. The Family Stone is his second
film. Incidentally Thomas used to be a store designer, which explains
why every piece of furniture in his films is so tasteful.

3) It has a positive gay couple who are loved
and accepted by their families.

4) It stars gay icon Sarah Jessica Parker in her
first role since Sex & The City. (And she almost steals
the show.)

5) For dykes, there's the added attraction of
the lava-hot Rachel McAdams and was-lava-hot-10-years-ago Claire
Danes and was-lava-hot-30-years-ago Diane Keaton. For fags, there's
the craggily handsome Dermot Mulroney.

6) But above all, the censors gave this gay-friendly
film a PG rating! Ho ho ho! Talk about the Christmas spirit of compassion?

The Family Stone centers on the Stone family as they reunite
for Christmas in the suburbs. This year, things are a little different
because the eldest son (Dermot Mulroney) is bringing home his new
girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker), a high-flying executive bitch
whom the eclectic Stone family find hard to accept.

At dinner, Sarah makes the huge mistake of saying that she wouldn't
want any child to grow up gay — even though she knows full
well that one of the Stone children (Tyrone Giordano) is gay and
has a black boyfriend (Brian White) sitting at the table with them.

What ensues for the next five minutes is a beautiful response from
Mama Stone (Diane Keaton) who defends her gay son to the last tear,
and probably wringing tears from many LGBT viewers as well. Yet,
what's also wonderful about this film is that homosexuality is not
central to the film's themes. Gay writer-director Thomas Bezucha
simply immerses the gay characters into the family without making
a big deal out of it — save for that one dinner incident.
It's refreshing to see gay people as just people, and not the ones
with the problem.

In short, we loved this film for all the stated reasons, and more.