Movie Review - Swan Song (2021)

Udo Kier is a legendary, German actor who is openly gay and who has been working for over 50 years. He's worked for a variety of filmmakers from Dario Argento, Gus Van Sant, Lars Von Trier, Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog. He's currently in his late 70's. As such, it only becomes natural that an actor would start appearing in films that are about getting old, aging and being elderly. There was an incredible example just recently with Anthony Hopkins in The Father (2021). Clint Eastwood has made a number of them in his latter career, including recently with Cry Macho (2021). Eastwood's film is a bit more optimistic than The Father. A lot of films about aging are either bittersweet or tragic. Away From Her (2006) is another example, which like The Father is about dementia or Alzheimer's disease. This film is set apart from other films about aging because it's about an openly gay character.

There have been several, gay films about aging. I'm specifically talking about fiction films, as opposed to documentaries that have been about elderly gay people talking about their lives and the past. Documentaries in that vein include titles like Chris & Don: A Love Story (2008), Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (2010), Tab Hunter Confidential (2015) or A Secret Love (2020). Yet, I'm talking about fictional films about elderly gay people, specifically elderly gay men, looking back or reflecting upon their lives and their past. The prime example is Gods and Monsters (1998), which is about a wealthy and privileged man. Better comparisons might be to Beginners (2010) and Love Is Strange (2014).

Udo Kier stars as Patrick Pitsenbarger, an elderly man who lives in a retirement home or a nursing home in Sandusky, Ohio, which is in the northern part of the state along Lake Erie, about a hour west of Cleveland. The retirement home though appears to be on the outskirts of town. He doesn't have a car or any money to take a taxi or even a bus. In order to get to town, he has to walk and that walk seems to be a long walk down a fairly deserted road. He doesn't go into town much. He mostly just stays in the retirement home and inside his room. He comes across as antisocial. He doesn't talk to other residents. He steals napkins in order to fold them alone in his room. He sneaks cigarettes and sleeps in his recliner.

What's revealed is that Patrick was a stylist, a beautician who specialized in hairdressing. He also does makeup for women. He had his own beauty shop or salon. He also had a boyfriend or partner with whom he lived openly in this at times red state. Unfortunately, Patrick lost both of those things and he's in a lot of ways depressed and a shell of his former self. One day, he gets a visit from a lawyer who says a former client named Rita Parker Sloan has died and her will stipulated that Patrick should be the one who styles her for her casket.

Michael Urie (Single All the Way and Ugly Betty) co-stars as Dustin, the grandson to Rita. He's the one who is arranging the funeral and other affairs in regards to his grandmother. He also has memories when he was younger of meeting Patrick and being inspired by him. Dustin doesn't seem to have any desire to work as a stylist or beautician. Dustin is gay and his inspiration was to live his life as an openly gay man too. Given that Kier is an actor who has lived openly for decades, if not all of his career, Dustin's inspiration could be meta-textual for Urie as well.

Written and directed by Todd Stephens, this film is tonally on the opposite end of the comedies for which he's known, that of Another Gay Movie (2006) and its sequel Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! (2008). Stephens' comedies are akin to the work of the Zucker brothers. This film is also in terms of age demographic on the opposite end of his feature debut as a writer, that of Edge of Seventeen (1998). This makes the film rather different from anything he's done before and thus somewhat compelling. The problem is that this film feels like it should be a character study of Patrick but ends up being more of a metaphor about how gay life has changed or evolved over the years.

He acknowledges that homophobia has lessened and gay men can perhaps do more things or live openly in a way that they couldn't before. Yet, Patrick, as Kier, has probably always lived openly, so the film is less about what has been gained and more about what has been lost. Short films like Matthew Ladensack's The Apple Tree (2012) demonstrated that gay or lesbian seniors still have homophobia to face. In fact, if anyone is still likely to face homophobia from their peers, it's likely seniors, Baby Boomers or older. That's not Stephens' commentary here.

There have been LGBTQ spaces, such as bars and clubs, and even cruising spots, that no longer exist. They no longer exist because gay men and lesbian women can be more open and don't need those spaces to feel safe. Those bars, clubs and cruising spots were spaces carved out in order to provide an area for LGBTQ people to feel safe by being around their own people. Malcolm Ingram details this in his documentary Small Town Gay Bar (2007) and Southern Pride (2019). Now, most restaurants, even corporate chains, provide a similar sense of safety. LGBTQ people also have access to the Internet and social media, which allows people to connect without needing to congregate in those bars, clubs and cruising spots. This makes those places desolate or go out of business.

So, there is a sense of nostalgia for what was the typical gay nightlife, which in certain coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco might still persist. However, smaller cities or towns like Sandusky might be losing a bit of that nightlife. I don't know how many bars or clubs catering to LGBTQ people have gone out of business or closed within the past couple of decades in Sandusky. There still remains some, but Stephens' film is commenting on whatever losses there may have been. These losses probably aren't limited to bars or clubs, but probably other LGBTQ-owned establishments.

This nostalgia though comes at the cost of digging deeper into Patrick as a character. I think there's enough here to give us an idea of what his life was like. At one point, someone calls him the "Liberace of Sandusky." There are other moments that give us some insight into his life before he lost everything, but the film builds to a moment at the end where he essentially confronts Rita, but I'm not sure Stephens gave us enough to make that moment land with the emotion that it needed. The moment after with Urie's character was effective. It charmed me to this film.

Rated R for language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 45 mins.

Available on Hulu.