Aging lesbians on the loose.
By Megan Smith
In a world obsessed with beauty and youth, older LGBT folks are starting to identify less and less with entertainment’s representation of their culture. So you’re not a cute early-thirties gay-dad couple? Hollywood isn’t too interested.
However, director Thom Fitzgerald uses his new film Cloudburst to break this norm and bring to audiences characters that are very rarely covered by queer films—aging lesbians.
Partners for thirty-one years, the rough-and-tough, foul-mouthed Stella (Olympia Dukakis) and now legally blind Dot (Brenda Fricker) are still madly in love and young at heart. However, trouble ensues when Dot is injured from a fall and her prudish, money-hungry granddaughter (Kristin Booth) puts her in a long-term care facility.
Determined not to be separated from her beloved, Stella decides to help Dot escape from the facility, and the two run away to Canada to be legally married as a last-gasp bid to stay together.
After discovering there is an all-points bulletin out for them, the couple decides to pick up a young male hitchhiker named Prentice (Ryan Doucette) to throw off the authorities. The pair soon finds that the small-town boy turned modern dancer, with troubles of his own, is returning home to Nova Scotia to visit his dying mother and her controlling husband.
The trip proves to be the adventure of a lifetime as the unlikely trio shares laughs, tears, and more than a few beers, all while developing a truly lasting friendship.
Put out by Wolfe Releasing, the largest exclusive distributor of LGBT films, Cloudburst has already taken home numerous awards, including the People’s Choice Award for Best Film of the Festival at the Atlantic Film Festival, and Audience Award for Best Film at Frameline San Francisco. It was also screened last year at Houston’s QFest.
In the end, Stella and Dot prove that love transcends age and ability. This heartwarming and hilarious film teaches the value of growing old with someone to love unconditionally, and the beauty of having that love returned.
Cloudburst debuts digitally July 23 and is available on DVD July 30 via Wolfe Video (wolfevideo.com).
