Uncle Frank

by Philip Price

Photo: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Alan Ball
Starring: Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis & Peter Macdissi
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour & 35 minutes

Everyone needs an Uncle Frank, but everyone deserves an Uncle Wally.
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Writer/Director Alan Ball’s “Uncle Frank” is obviously a very personal story as it is somewhat based on his own father’s experiences, but what makes the film so transcendent is how as much as I was invested in the drama of the characters on screen, Ball’s film made me look deep inside my own soul and reflect on shortcomings that hadn’t even occurred to me until experiencing his film.

Being raised in Central Arkansas under the traditional thumb of the Catholic Church I had no idea what “gay” even meant until junior high or high school, so I sure as hell didn’t have any idea I might have had a gay family member. It wasn’t until 2013 at the age of 26 that I realized my own uncle had been keeping a secret from his family for what was at least my entire life and probably much longer. I didn’t have a chance to speak to my uncle before he passed due both to unreconciled family drama and his deteriorating health. I’m also positive I said some things in front of him in my youth that would disappoint and destroy me now. “Uncle Frank” made me wish I’d been more like Sophia Lillis’ Beth. It made me wish I’d been a better person, really. Both more understanding in my youth and more willing to strike up a conversation with my uncle in the brief window of time I had with him as an adult. I wish I’d talked to him enough to know he was hurting or hiding something, but I never bothered to ask - I never made a point to consider his life outside of what it meant to my own.

While the pain of this regret is new, deserved, and more devastating than I would have expected given the circumstances surrounding my uncle’s death I also feel indebted to “Uncle Frank” for helping me realize how much I’ve grown and how much growing I still have left to do.

Cheers to Ball for the way in which he structures the unraveling of Frank’s past, compassionately framing how Frank became the man he is when we’re introduced to him.

Cheers to Paul Bettany, Peter Macdissi and Lillis for genuinely strong performances and a chemistry that would make anyone want to join the trio on a road trip.

And cheers to the appropriately named Aunt Butch for being capable of more than we – and seemingly Frank – ever expected her to be. Also, Margo Martindale. “If being curly-headed is something that gets passed down, why not…” What a treasure.

“Uncle Frank” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.