Twilight of the Golds

Based on a flop Broadway play, this film was made for Showtime but given a theatrical release, with not much more success than the stage version. Still, it's an intriguing idea, even if the dramaturgy tends toward the didactic. The jumping-off point here is the scientific discovery that homosexuality is genetic--and that the gene can be detected in prenatal testing. This disrupts the Gold family, where Dad (Garry Marshall) barely tolerates the homosexuality of his son (Brendan Fraser). When pregnant daughter Jennifer Beals, who is married to a geneticist (Jon Tenney), has the test and discovers that her fetus will be gay, she triggers a family debate that pits parents (including mom Faye Dunaway) against son, raising the question of whether they would have aborted Fraser if they'd known he would be gay. Good acting can't overcome heavy-handed dialogue, though Fraser and Marshall are particularly good. --Marshall Fine