Call Me Malcolm

Last week I went to see the documentary Call Me Malcolm at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, CA. I normally tend to swerve away from film festivals in the area; I subscribe to the theory that there would be too many films that would raise my interest, so I just stay away. However, this documentary was an exception. Part of the funding for the film came from the United Church of Christ (UCC), and the film's subject, Malcolm, is now a UCC minister. Given that I am UCC and am queer, I felt a obligation to be there. It was hard to get a pulse on the crowd reaction, being that easily over 50% of the audience was UCC. However, the fact I was not disappointed in the film may reflect in the overall positive reaction.

As the film opens, Malcolm sits atop a precipice looking out over the vastness below him, and this becomes the working metaphor for the film. The film documents Malcolm's transition from Miriam to Malcolm while in seminary, with interviews and clips from support groups and conversations along the way. One of the more touching scenes comes when Malcolm is talking with a mother of a gay teenager who was murdered; for those of us in the SF Bay area, it reminded us of the still lingering case of Gwen Araujo. The candor the mother has in the film in speaking of her son's penchant for being gender queer (my use of the word), and her unconditional love for him in the face of intolerance is effective as part of other narratives that are nor so happy in their endings.

As a whole the film is a coherent unit. There are spots where I wish the director could have gone deeper in regards to certain issues, but these moments do not detract from the overall work.