Our Sons

When one hears that Julie Andrews and Ann-Margaret are going to be in the same film, one expects possibly a comedy or musical. What you have here are some riveting performances by two old pros in a story that still could resonate today. The in-bred bigotry espoused by Ann-Margaret I am sure, is still practiced by many in regions all over the world. Julie Andrews character is somewhat more enlightened as she has (grudgingly) accepted her son's homosexuality. Her initial facade of tolerance is tempered by a "disappointment" that her own son is gay. Her earnest wish for her son to be tested and his fear of being tested show honest and true emotions for the characters. Hugh Grant does well in his role of the lover about to lose his mate. I hadn't see this since it was first telecast in 1991, but I was surprised to see how well the writing, direction and especially the performances have held up over the years. See this by all means.

Our Sons is one of the better films dealing with AIDS that I've seen next to The Normal Heart. It casts Julie Andrews and Ann Margret as two radically different women who must come together when one of their sons is dying of AIDS.

Hugh Grant has an early role as Andrews' son and he pleads with his mother to bring Margret's character from Arkansas to see his dying lover and her son. This doesn't go as planned and Andrews must convince Margret to see her son, because Margret is under the impression that her son deserves what's coming to him because of his lifestyle.

Even 30 years later, this story is all too resonate with parents abandoning their gay children all the time. Our Sons tells an incredibly moving story about how it's never too late to reconnect and forgive. Andrews and Margret have never been better and you have to give them credit for willing to star in a non-judgemental story about AIDS when people were still scared to talk about it.

This is possibly the best made TV movie I've ever watched... Very powerful, moving and wonderfully acted. "Our Sons" is a great tearjerker and lesson in tolerance!

Both Julie Andrews and Ann Margret bring a lot of heart and subtlety to this story, about two mothers from very different backgrounds brought together by a tragedy affecting their sons and their common difficulty facing it. Their characters offer different perspectives on a sensitive topic.

The roles of James and particularly Donald are not as strong or subtly acted, but do not hurt the quality of this film or our enjoyment watching it.

Let's hope this little known pearl will be coming to DVD soon, for all to discover and enjoy!

In OUR SONS, Oscar winner Julie Andrews made her TV movie debut as a wealthy socialite who is asked by her gay son (Hugh Grant) to travel to the town of Fayetteville to find the mother (Ann-Margret) of his lover (Zeljko Ivanek), who is dying of AIDS and wants to see his mother before he dies. This movie shows all four characters going through a myriad of emotions as not only does Andrews have to deal with the fact that her own son is gay and that his lover is dying, she is forced into bonding with this stranger, who not only knew nothing about her son being gay, but now that she knows, wants nothing to do with him and seems curiously unmoved by the fact that her son is dying. Also complicating matters is a clash of social classes as Andrews finds Ann-Margret's character to be uneducated white trash who resents this wealthy woman's intrusion into her life, which ignites some very powerful emotions between the two women. Equally moving are the scenes between the two lovers. This movie is well-directed and acted and brings up quite a few unpleasant questions regarding homosexuality and AIDS. An adult motion picture drama that tackles some unpleasant subject matter but is well worth watching for the adult and open minded movie viewer.

No matter what a man might have done to bring himself to an AIDS-ridden state, at the very least, he's entitled to two things: a fond farewell among his loved ones, and a proper burial. Few could have played out these sentiments more simply and rivetingly than in "Our Sons." Even in the bright San Diego sunlight, there is a pall of melancholy that hangs over everything in this movie--a ghost of yearning for tenderness and tolerance. It's an elegy that plunges through sharp differences of opinions, and, unlike most great homages, finishes with a sweet, somber sigh. I cannot remember when I've been moved so strongly by a TV movie.

Julie Andrews stars as a businesswoman whose homosexual son, exhausted by the ordeal, reveals that his lover is dying AIDS. They have drifted apart, because although it had never been expressed, she is deeply disappointed with the situation, and harbors a faint hope that he might change. Under the mistaken notion that the best thing for his lover is to reunite him with his own mother, he asks her to travel to Arkansas to make a personal appeal. The problem is what separates this Mother and Son is not a tacit agreement to quietly disagree, but out-and-out rejection and gut-wrenching revulsion. The war breaks out between the two mothers as they wrestle with their strong feelings about their sons.

Julie Andrews has never been known for playing mothers. Her clipped diction and stilted manner made her a more fitting nanny or governess, I think, than a living, breathing, nurturing bearer of children. It's these qualities that make her right to play Audrey Grant who has distanced herself from her son, because she doesn't want to admit that she hates what has happened. Andrews has never looked more radiant than she does here. It's as if the blood has finally started coursing through her veins. She looks recognizably human, and she has never seemed smarter than she does here.

Ann-Margret doesn't seem any fitter to play a mother than Andrews, but she has always been known for her ferocity. Witness her going at John Forsythe in "Kitten With A Whip" or her eyes flash at a cockfight in "The Cincinnati Kid," and you'll know what I mean. But the abuses the women she played could heap upon the men in their lives, her Luanne Barnes can't quite get away with with another woman. She and Andrews go at it tooth-and-nail, and what comes of it are their most powerful performances ever.

As Luanne's son Donnie, Zeljko Ivanek is the humiliation every parent fears, the skeleton most fathers and mothers want to stay in the closet, the jack-in-the-box they'd just as soon lost its spring. Donnie knows how his mother feels about him, and he wrestles with the prospect of a painful reunion as bravely as a dying man can. Writer William Hanley has blessed him with a love of movie dialogue and a take-things-as-they-come buoyancy. Ivanek knows what to do with a part this good. He flies with it, and he never comes down. With him playing Donnie, you can understand how he could attract someone who looks like Hugh Grant (who plays Audrey's son James as if he had a terminal case of lockjaw) and who could make a mother like Luanne Barnes see what a waste her rage and rejection was.

John Erman, who also directed another good AIDS picture "An Early Frost," is an intelligent director; he knows when he has something good in front of him and when to get out of the way. The moral of the story may be a bit simplistic for some people's taste: that if we don't love our children, who will? But I think this movie stands alone on the subject of AIDS; it's the most powerful movie about it I've ever seen.