JoIt may be that many of us continue to float in our stupor, eager to feed as much as possible after four years of falling into a bottomless emotional and psychological pit. We don’t even expect either positivity or hope, but the ability to feel anything again in a normal way: to grieve, to cry, to feel from anger to relief, and, yes, even joy.
Maybe we didn’t even realize we had been holding our breath for four years. It wasn’t until we exhaled that we realized that all of these sensations were about to spill over, the good ones, the bad ones, and all the ones in between. It is very sensitive to do so! It’s exhausting, but also intoxicating.
And riding on that buzz is the new drama starring Justin Timberlake Palmer, and its themes of tolerance, redemption, empathy, and the celebration of otherness.
It is a cinematic comfort meal in a rare and backward banquet moment for seriousness, kindness and reminders that small sparks of humanity still exist. Palmer is, in terms of these things, in the world of art and film, genetically designed to force you to … eh, I mean to leave you, you feel things.
In the film, which airs Friday on Apple TV +, Timberlake plays a former composer named Eddie Palmer, who after turning 12 for a felony, returns to his hometown in the south of the country to live with his grandmother , Vivian (June Squibb, always), who raised him. Living in a trailer next door is a single mother (Juno Temple) and her 7-year-old son, Sam (newcomer Ryder Allen). Palmer looks out the window, watching the mother and son play together with dolls and raises an eyebrow.
Palmer is surprised one morning to find Sam in the house. Her mother took off — not for the first time — and, as she had done before, Vivian welcomed her. They eat together and go to church together. Vivian lets Sam do her hair and play with her makeup. Sam is very unaware of his behavior, even around Palmer. “You know you’re a boy, don’t you? The boys don’t play with dolls, ”says Palmer. “Well, I’m a boy, and I do,” Sam replies.
When Vivian tragically dies sleeping one night, Palmer is left to take care of Sam. It would be thought that the two would collide immediately. But Palmer sees the ways the community, both children and adults, intimidate Sam for his inexorable self-confidence for wanting to dress like a princess and hold tea parties with school girls. Palmer becomes a staunch advocate and advocate for Sam, and the kind of paternal figure a boy like that desperately needs.
People, you will never believe it: they save each other.
The best Palmer is that you have already seen it. Is it like that Big Daddy, but serious. Is it like that About a boy, but the boy is gay. I can’t talk about the filmmakers’ knowledge of this formula, including director Fisher Stevens and screenwriter Cheryl Guerriero, but the film is better not to deviate from it, giving all the familiar rhythms with the precision of the torn strings the acoustic guitar score that you can already hear describing this movie.
It loosens the tap of all those bottled emotions mentioned above and allows them to scatter with all the force of a fire station: a deluge of cathartic appreciation for Sam’s struggle, Palmer’s interest, and his strength in the time to face the cruelly rugged road. society.
You will cry and feel good about it. You will be proud of your empathy and your awakening. This guy Sam doesn’t deserve a hard life just because he likes feminine things and lives in a town full of homophobes. It’s a film that also serves as a setback for the target audience, and herein lies the slight problem.
Messaging is irrefutable. Timberlake, in his favor, is excellent, a triumphant return to a promising acting career that at one point had appeared hesitant. Allen as Sam is a revelation. Palmer it is so visible that you hardly need to pay attention and yet you would still get all the emotional benefits. But it’s what I legitimately loved about a movie that I’m not sure I’m happy to exist.
In addition to the play “unlikely parental figure of a lost child”, there is another increasingly familiar genre Palmer belongs to: the emotionally manipulative Oscar bait in which a reformed homophobe transforms into a gay savior. In other words, well-intentioned films that don’t tread so much, but abuse the fine line between human vision and the exploitation of queer pain.
It’s a tricky stress to discuss and there are no easy answers on how to tell these stories, or even if they are stories that need to be told.
Although it is a much superior film, there are notes of Palmer that they remember Joe Bell, the Mark Wahlberg drama that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall, but which recently moved from the release schedule to a TBD date later this year. There are also echoes of Falling, the next film written, directed and starring Viggo Mortensen about a gay son who has his father’s abusive homophobia as his old age begins to close the window of opportunity for closure.
“It’s a tricky stress to discuss and there are no easy answers on how to tell these stories, or even if they are stories that need to be told.”
Both films are emotionally exhausting stories about tortured but evolving relationships between unacceptable parents and their gay children, and the scars that persist from such a fragile bond. They both have the potential to be entrants that open their eyes to complicated conversations about sexuality and masculinity that could do great good for the audience.
But both films also enter into the conversation of who should tell the stories of those marginalized and underrepresented. Nor does it satisfy the weary of seeing the struggle for queer acceptance filtered through the travels of straight characters and crafted by direct creative teams. This shouldn’t totally discount any of your creative accomplishments, but it’s a worthy consideration.
How Palmer enter the image?
Sam is 7 years old. His sexuality is not discussed, obviously, again, he has 7. But identity and gender expression are the root of his relationships with all the characters in the film, and especially with Palmer. Those who attack him are portrayed as fans. But Sam’s journey, while being Palmer’s own catalyst, is secondary. It is again a film focused on the redemption of the character cis.
That very thing becomes a trope.
When formerly the juicy role of a heterogeneous actor was to play the persecuted queer person, now the character who has a crisis of consciousness about his role in the chase is attractive. It is an evolution in identity politics to play weird roles, but it still raises the question of the value of this type of narrative.
There is the presumption that this is something that feels good when it is really, at least in some respects, hurting. I can’t tell you how inspiring it is to see Justin Timberlake play a tough guy who falls completely in love and accepts from a young guy who doesn’t fit the genre. It means something — actually — to have a film with a father figure that wholeheartedly supports a child in this way. But the abuse that Palmer and the audience are witnessing is triggering, in such a small way, perpetuating and normalizing these things.
It cannot be repeated enough how complicated all this is. Sam is a heroic character and it’s so refreshing to see him present with unbridled confidence, regardless of gender norms. But it is also infallible. It is impossible not to worship, early and kind-hearted. It has to be for a story like this to work. Perfection is still required to balance otherness if the audience is incorporated.
It’s beautiful to see how Palmer and different people in the community support and foster Sam’s interest and identity. He has a healthier education than most, who are constantly silenced, corrected, or abused. When he is older, out and proud with a support system, he feels famous for his fascination with divas and princesses and beautiful things. But what if we gave the same permission to children, to young children? What if playing with Barbies wasn’t illegal, a shame?
These questions are allowed to be raised in this film, but only by Palmer’s heroic compassion.
The idea of a savior requires someone who needs to save. This lack of agency, even in a story as enjoyable as this, is the continuation of decades of harmful Hollywood troops in which drought and gender identity are used as props.
I have no doubt that, if you’ve gotten this far in this review, you’re a person who will thrill this movie. And I’m happy. I loved watching this movie and feeling warm inside, feeling good about a better future full of Palmers and Sams.
The fact that the film is so easy to like and affect emotionally is why it deserves this review as well. And the most valuable thing you can do is invite the conversation, I hope it spurs.