The 52: Any Day Now

   From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.

First and foremost: Alan Cumming is a star.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Second and also fairly close to foremost but not quite there: he deserved literally anything except this haircut.

Any Day Now begins in a somewhat unpromising way, but don’t be warded off by dick behaviour and more dick behaviour (expect 30mins of this) because this film is absolutely… heart wrecking.

Yeah… be warned. Any Day Now is ruinous.

Again I’m a little stumped, uncertain how to proceed in describing a film that, by the end, left me utterly frozen. We’ll return to Alan Cumming, who deserves everything and is transcendental, who gives such a performance you forget you aren’t experiencing every moment yourself, who embodies Rudy with such fire that, on a coin, becomes tenderness, who makes this film everything, everything, everything.

Telling the story of two gay men and their fight for legal adoption of the child in their care, a boy with down syndrome whose mother is in jail, Any Day Now has so many moments of pure brightness, incandescent joy, and just as many moments that left me horrified, heartbroken and shattered. I kept replaying the last half hour over the next days, twisting and turning to understand it, and as I write this? It hasn’t gotten any easier.

Unfortunately, as with most films that feature a drag queen or a trans character, we hit the “oh, the people making this clearly weren’t sure of the difference” and, while making for a powerful point of character development on his part, Paul’s treatment of Rudy due to his own closeted self made it difficult for me to trust him entirely, the fact he initially offers no help to Rudy or Marco because he was ashamed to be seen with them left me calling for blood.

Any Day Now is not an easy film to watch, but bloody hell is it an important one. Alan Cumming, you master of this craft.

Like things shorter? Follow me on Letterboxd and see my review