Stonewall

The Greenwich Village bar where a 1969 anti-harassment riot turned into the opening salvo in the gay liberation movement provides the title of Roland Emmerich's film, which is ultimately nothing more than an old-fashioned fictional coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of that watershed event. After Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine), a handsome high-school kid in small-town Indiana, is caught in a compromising situation with the team quarterback, his father—who is also the homophobic football coach—exiles him from the family homestead. Danny heads for New York, where he quickly finds himself on Christopher Street, center of the city's gay subculture. Totally looking the part of the straight-arrow stud, Danny falls in with a crowd of high-spirited locals, most notably Ray, aka Ramona (Jonny Beauchamp), a reedy, androgynous extrovert who takes Danny under his infatuated wing. But Danny also catches the eye of Trevor (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a straitlaced member of the Mattachine Society, who encourages him to abandon his colorful new friends and adopt a more moderate approach to effecting social change. The film predictably becomes a struggle for Danny's soul between the forces of militancy and compromise, leading up to the Stonewall riot. While heartfelt, Stonewall is also stilted, cliché-ridden, manipulative, and ultimately unworthy of its subject. Optional, at best. (F. Swietek)