Psychotronic Pride: Twilight of the Golds

Rob (Jon Tenney) and Suzanne (Jennifer Beals) are a happily married Jewish couple.   Suzanne is part of the affluent Gold family which consists of her father, Walter (Garry Marshall); overprotective mother, Phyliss (Faye Dunaway); and gay brother, David (Brendan Fraser).  Rob is a doctor who is working on a portion of the human genome project specifically testing fetuses for abnormalities and diseases. When Suzanne becomes pregnant, Rob’s boss convinces him to have their baby tested which comes back with a 90% probability that their male child will be gay like David.  This creates friction within the family as Suzanne wrestles with the decision on whether or not to keep the child or abort. The very consideration of this option hurts David deeply and brings out his parent’s true feeling towards him, harming their relationship. Suzanne doesn’t think she is strong enough to raise a gay child, having seen all the heartache, discrimination and persecution that David has gone through. What choice would you make?

The Twilight of the Golds is a 1997 television film which premiered on Showtime.  It is based on a play of the same name by Jonathan Tolins, although the source material has a much darker and not as happy of an ending.  The critical reception of the film was not kind, with most of the comments focused on the acting saying Jennifer was out of her depths and Marshall and Dunaway were too stereotypical. The one thing that was overall accepted as good was the pacing of the film and the 92-minute-long movie does clip along at a good pace.  There were some good reviews from TV Guide and The New York Times, believing the acting to be very good, which just goes to show how subjective review writing can be.

I remember reading the play in the mid-1990s and was very excited when I heard about the movie and was not disappointed.  I felt that the cast did a great job and where some of the acting is a bit more “theatrical”, I thought Fraser and Beals did a good job with the subtleties of their respective parts.  The story is technically science-fiction, as we cannot yet tell (that I know of at least) whether a child is going to be gay by genetic testing, the idea behind it is based in fact, which the human genome project having the ability to test for the probability of passing along certain genetic traits.  I did feel that the film was dated, as I am not sure finding out your kid is going to be gay, would cause that much commotion in most families.  Possibly in ultra-religious households, but I think the public opinion on this has swayed a bit and it wouldn’t be the moral dilemma it was in this film.  I do think that there are aspects of this film that are still very timely, maybe even more so.  The morality of abortion is brought up, but it is not the prime issue that I think it would be today. There is also the question of whether or not knowing this type of information is better known or kept unknown.  The fear of AIDS is also subtly addressed, David’s status is never revealed, but his mother worries when Suzanne takes a bite of food that David has bitten into, the assumption is that Phyliss believes that Suzanne could catch something bad from David because he is a gay man. The question “if there was a cure for homosexuality, would you want it?” is blatantly addressed by both Phyliss and Walter.  I had the same conversation, although in much better context, with my mother, most gay people probably have had this discussion at least once.  My answer was very similar to David’s in the film, “That aspect is part of who I am at a very base level that removing it would change my very essence, so if you not only love me, but like who I have become, a cure will take that away.”, paraphrasing what David says most eloquently, “Everyone is a tapestry, pull one tiny thread and the whole thing unravels”. Overall, I enjoyed this film in 1997 and I enjoyed it again in 2024, there are parts that are poignantly emotional for a gay man who lived the same life that David did, during the same period. The movie feels like it moves at a quick pace and the story has a good rhythm and unfolds naturally. The ending is drastically changed from the original play and gives better closure to the family, if not altogether a happy one it is much more pleasant than the hard-hitting stage version has.