My first reaction to the news that Stonewall was heading to theaters: How timely and vital. My reaction when I read Roland Emmerich directed: Oh, no.
Sure enough, Emmerich, known for action blockbusters such as Independence Day, brings plenty of his crushing literal-mindedness to this drama about the 1969 New York riots that sparked the modern gay rights movement. Along the rocky way, he also manages to squeeze in some moments of visual poetry and an understanding of the schisms between the old guard and the new guard that mark every social movement.
Stonewall isn't good, but it's not quite as bad as you might imagine. (How's that for a blurb?)
Our guide is a fresh-faced Midwestern kid named Danny (Jeremy Irvine). Cast out of his rural Indiana home after he's caught with another deeply closeted friend, Danny disembarks in Greenwich Village and finds a new gay world awaiting him, including regular beat downs from the cops, street hustling and frequent raids of the Stonewall Inn.
Stonewall has drawn controversy (and boycott pledges) based just on its trailer and concerns that the movie marginalizes transgender and ethnic characters and actors. (It should be noted that black drag queen Marsha P. Johnson, played by Otoja Abit, has a decent-sized role in the story.) But the movie has other problems.
Irvine has only sporadic success in suppressing his English accent. Danny's character arc, from naive small-town teen to brick-throwing firebrand, is blurry at best.
Which isn't to say he, or the film, fails to ever gain life. The early scenes at the Stonewall capture a specific mood, time and place, a dive bar bathed in red light and blessed with a good jukebox. There's a slow dance sequence set to to Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" that feels as lived-in as anything Emmerich has committed to film.
Danny's odyssey through varying levels of gay activism is thoughtfully handled. The path of assimilation intrigues the young man, but his heart resides with his friends on the streets, where he finds himself in the wee hours of June 28, 1969.
And those streets are where Stonewall goes to die. I'm sure it's not easy to shoot visceral riot scenes, but Emmerich doesn't even seem to try. The uprising itself plays flat and inert, devoid of tension or significance, an afterthought where it should be the main event.
As for the movie's historical veracity: Remember this is a filmmaker who insisted with overheated implausibility, in 2011's Anonymous, that Shakespeare was a conniving fraud, perhaps even a murderer, who didn't write his own plays.
There are some great documentaries on the gay rights movement, including After Stonewall, The Times of Harvey Milk and How to Survive a Plague, and a fine new book, Lillian Faderman's The Gay Revolution. Don't lambast Stonewall for not following that lead. It's a bad enough movie to sink on its own merits.
STONEWALL (C-)
Directed by Roland Emmerich. R (sexual content, language throughout, violence and drug use). 129 mins. At the Landmark Inwood, Cinemark Legacy and Angelika Plano.
