Review: 'The Mattachine Family' a Human Drama about Queer Parenting

Andy Vallentine's debut feature "The Mattachine Family" might sound like a sci-fi sitcom (the lighter side of the AI apocalypse, anyone?) but it's actually a very human family drama about queer parenting that could be applied to any couple seeking to build their family.

Thomas (Nico Tortorella) is a photographer married to Oscar (Juan Pablo Di Pace), a former child star whose career imploded when the public (and the Hollywood industry) discovered he was gay. He's been trying to resurrect his acting career ever since, but in the meantime he wants to add a child to his family life.

The only holdup is – or rather, was – Thomas' ambivalence toward the idea. Finally, however, Oscar convinces Thomas to take in a foster child, and for a time the two become dads... and Thomas realizes he's a natural at it. More than that, he discovers in himself a deep-seated need for fatherhood, perhaps scarred over by the death of his own father when he was young.

But their happy experience as foster dads is short-lived. When the boy they've taken in is returned to his mother, Thomas is crushed with grief. Oscar – himself a foster child in his youth – is philosophical, knowing that the vagaries of the foster care system made this result a possibility from the start, and believing that the boy is best served by being reunited with a biological parent.

This switch in roles is compounded when Thomas begins to yearn for fatherhood again, while Oscar is finally offered a role in a new TV series. Facing the prospect of years of long hours away from his family, and not wanting to be "a shitty absentee father," Oscar makes it plain that he's not down to be a parent again.

But the paternal instincts that have been awakened in Thomas cannot be ignored, and witnessing the IVF journey his best friend Leah (Emily Hampshire) is on with her wife, Sonia (Cloie Wyatt Taylor), only sharpens Thomas' sense of loss and longing.

"The Mattachine Family" draws its awkward title from The Mattachine Society, an LGBTQ+ equality group founded by Will Hay in the 1950s (an early example of its kind in the U.S., it was called a "homophile" group back then). It's a nice attempt to call back to our queer heritage, especially since a consciousness of LGBTQ+ history is more important now than ever before. (If there's one thing anti-LGBTQ+ bigots have made clear, it's that they will never let us live in peace, no matter how equal we might become in the eyes of the law.)

However, the title – and a scene set on L.A.'s Mattachine Steps during a scene in which it seems like Thomas has turned into something of a stalker – gives the film an on-the-nose sensibility that sometimes works against its deeply felt messages around the emotional complexities of relationships and the fundamental equality of basic human connection. Intermittent narration by Thomas is another distraction: The film could, and does, communicate its themes successfully without having to make a guided tour of it.

All of that aside, the movie is an impressive first feature that manages to be both universal and specific, and to portray completely different mindsets and attitudes around painful personal choices. Refreshing, too, is that the movie's crux isn't that its protagonists are gay, or that they are married; the time has come for sophisticated stories that can be funny and dramatic while set against the fact that same-sex families (and their extended families of choice) are commonplace, necessary, and natural. Andy Vallentine and his husband, co-writer and producer Danny Vallentine, have not only recognized a valuable niche for mature queer cinema; they have jumped in and created a worthy role model for films yet to come.

"The Mattachine Family" premieres on VOD June 4, followed by a Blu-ray release on June 25.