Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, with a new Faye Dunaway documentary premiering on HBO, we’re revisiting 1997’s The Twilight Of The Golds, a family melodrama co-starring Dunaway with some dubious politics.
When looking back at your own life and decisions, it’s easy to get consumed by the What-Ifs: What if certain things turned differently? What if you could go back and do things over again—the right way? There’s so much potential in the infinite possibilities of these imaginary, alternate paths.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that so much of storytelling revolves around answering these countless questions,—in fact, many genres thrive on it. For example, the entire idea behind science fiction is imagining distant (or not so distant) futures in which theoretical questions are a reality.
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However, there are some What-Ifs that perhaps shouldn’t be asked. And, in this week’s column, we look back on a movie that dared to do so anyway.
Director Ross Kagan Marks’ 1997 film The Twilight Of The Golds raises the question: What if you could learn whether or not your child was gay before they were born? Even if that question doesn’t seem too outlandish to you, somehow this film manages to answer it in all the wrong ways.
The Set-Up
With a shockingly star-packed ensemble at its center, The Twilight Of The Golds revolves around the titular family made up of patriarch Walter (Garry Marshall), matriarch Phylis (Faye Dunaway, whose new documentary Faye premieres this weekend on Max), and adult children Suzanne (Jennifer Beals) and David (Brendan Fraser).
Suzanne is married to a genetic research doctor (Jon Tenney), and when she becomes pregnant, they are able to learn that the baby will most likely be gay based on its genetic information—just like her brother David. What follows is ninety minutes of moral outrage, repressed bigotry, and faux progressive schmaltz that, which may have been well-intentioned at the time, but only illuminates just how recently gay people were still considered unwanted burdens on their family members.
Cracked Mirror
At its core, The Twilight Of The Golds feels like a Black Mirror episode that’s played completely sincerely and without the dystopian satire angle. This “technology” that is able to foretell a fetus’ sexuality is never explained or questioned—it just exists and it is taken as fact. And much like the Netflix series, this technology is used as a springboard to raise ethical dilemmas and moral quandaries, only the one at the center of this movie basically boils down to: “Should gay people be allowed to exist?”
The moment Suzanne learns that her unborn child will most likely be gay, she and her entire family go into a downward spiral of questioning, shame, and reevaluating their own decisions about the gay child they did raise.
Oh, Brother!
Even before the issue of the baby is brought up, David is portrayed as a young man whose shortcomings in life are directly tied to his sexuality: instead of pursuing a worthy career as a doctor or lawyer, he… is an artist (shock!). Never mind that he seems to be quite successful at it (somehow able to put on a full-on production of a Wagner opera), and that he is well-adjusted, with a life partner and a healthy group of friends. But to his family’s eyes, he’s a failure.
As soon as he learns that his sister is considering not having her child, David begins to question if his parents would have gotten rid of him had they learned about his sexuality before he was born. And, well, he gets his answer loud and clear. His parents tell him in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t have had him had they gotten a chance, and that they still consider his sexuality a disease, which they would choose to “cure” if given the chance (and in this parallel universe, who knows, maybe there is).
But don’t worry: they still love him, we guess???
Related*
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Family Feud
The film doesn’t shed light into any new or unique sentiments for the queer community. We know there are people that feel this way. Some of them have been, and still are, the people closest to us.
What feels so off-putting and tone deaf is that the film portrays these feelings as valid arguments coming from the protagonists of the story. It’s not critiquing these types of families; we’re meant to empathize with them, and validate their view. We should see that it’s okay—and even understandable—for them to have a flicker of doubt on whether we have a right to exist, hiding behind the age-old argument of wanting to protect us from the harm and evil of the world.
It also considers the All-American nuclear family as the ultimate goal and emotional connection that everyone should aim for. David, despite the open contempt (and sometimes outward rejection) that his parents and sister continuously show him, should endure it and want their acceptance, because “family is family.” Queer people obviously have a much more nuanced and complicated relationship to our blood relatives, but the film reinforces the trope that it is up to us to be the bigger person.
Fool’s Golds
The movie follows the trend we’ve covered before of A-listers being used as the faces in controversial topics to reach out to mainstream America, so it is no surprise that stars of this caliber (which also includes Rosie O’Donnell as Suzanne’s best friend) would have gotten involved. The performances are committed, and are even able to bring out some humanity in the material (Dunaway and Fraser are the standouts).
But, at its core, The Twilight Of The Golds asks the kind of questions that queer people know better than to ask—because we know the answers too well, and we do not like them.
The Twilight Of The Golds is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Freevee, Hoopla, PlutoTV, and The Roku Channel.
theaterbloke
I wish the author of this piece had done a bit more research into the story. In the original play Suzanne opts to terminate her pregnancy and the complications involved in that render her unable to have children in the future. David cuts off all contact with his family because of these events. The movie is more hopeful since the family eventually comes around. It may be less realistic but I opt for hope every time.
theaterbloke
On a side note, the Broadway production starred a post-nose job Jennifer Grey as Suzanne and her new face was the only topic of conversation during intermission.
glowbear504
Research the play , the time period in which it was produced and the public reaction . There’s no mention. Know your history . This piece comes of as lazy and almost sanctimonious .
Man About Town
While the movie’s ending is a total cop-out compared with the play, I disagree with everything Mr. Molina says about it.
I saw the play and film as a cautionary tale and an original take on what might happen if such a pre-natal discovery were possible. Also, he ends his piece with “because we know the answers too well, and we do not like them.” I guess he thinks every LGBTQ+ person on the planet is automatically obligated to agree with him.
jp47
I saw this film in its original release. It had a top notch cast and I thought they all did excellent work, but even in the late nineties I considered its attitudes about gay people dated and ridiculous.
Yooper
The author isn’t astute at in depth research of place and time.
Jim
I saw a production to this play before it got to Broadway. (Yes, with Jennifer and her nose.)
One must consider the time it was made.
It was actually groundbreaking. Remember it tried to get the conversation started at a time when there wasn’t any dialogue.
XoroTGB
Perhaps this would make an interesting update for today, where the conservative family could angst between having an abortion or having a gay child?
carllonghorn
Bingo – that is really the question people would be asking today. Poor straight people caught between a rock and a hard place.
carllonghorn
I find it interesting that people on the right are tending toward the assumption that gay people are “groomed,” not born. So the premise of this play/play may not hold up with many people in today’s world – simply keep the baby away from the grooming gays, and all will be okay. These people would never consider that gay people would actually be born to straight people as part of the natural world – it is all just a grooming thing.
CityBoy300
Agreed that this is a lazy piece of quasi-journalism, in that it never mentions the underlying play – with its very different ending – or THE NAME of the author! Jonathan Tolins wrote both the play and the screenplay, although the latter is also credited to Seth Bass. In 1993, when the play appeared on Broadway, this was groundbreaking material; I believe it was even covered in Time Magazine. The play is much darker; the sister not only aborts the baby and destroys her brother’s relationship with his family; the abortion is botched and she can never have another child. Since no one presumed at the time that gays would ever bear their own children, this was the end of the familial line – the twilight of the Golds as a family. (As well as a play on Wagner’s mega-opera The Twilight of the Gods.)
Cam
Did the author watch the movie? The family were not presented as sympathetic when they were being bigots and felt shame and guilt later on after the son cut them off. Additionally, the son’s partner made inroads with the family, etc.
OzJay
The London production starred Jason Gould, son of Barbra Streisand, about whom Jonathan Tolins would later write his extremely tacky play, Buyer and Cellar. If Tolins has a talent, it’s for confecting a controversy, then lazily exploiting it, sadly without much depth or wit.