Product: Amazing Grace (1992)
Rating: 4.0
A Tale of two Isreali families each with a gay son.
Jonathan is splitting from Miki after Miki convinced him to get an apartment and move in together. The more experienced, draft dodging, Miki is seldom home and is sleeping around. Meanwhile Miki's sister and her dope-dealing friends are always there. When Jonathan sees Thomas, the son and grandson of his neighbors, sunning himself in the apartment courtyard, Jonathan is smitten. Thomas left Israel for New York years ago to study music but has come back to Israel after contracting AIDS. Although Jonathan tries to connect with him, Thomas insists on remaining detached. Thomas is ill, and in search of hard drugs, not a relationship. But the story is also about each boy's family. Thomas's mother is a seamstress who works out of her home. While Thomas has never "come out" to her, she suspects and is astute enough to realize that something is wrong. Meanwhile, Thomas's grandmother is ill and is hypercritical of her daughter. Both women worry about Thomas but seem to take out their tensions by sniping with each other. Jonathan's mother runs a small nursery (day care center) where Jonathon works. His brother and sister also work there from time to time and all have awkward relationships with the openly gay if somewhat inexperienced Jonathan. The portraits of each of the family members in both families are well drawn and the story is consistently interesting if a bit bleak.