Some great performances hide big holes in NBC's “The Matthew Shepard Story.” Telepic is a spare, flashback-fueled biography that manages to strike some of the right emotional chords, but one of America's most notable hate crimes and its knock-on effects feels too condensed and rushed.
Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston are ideal as grieving parents, and to that end, their tale is particularly moving. What's missing is a sense of urgency and outrage, a message to everyone that the 1998 murder of a kind, kind soul was much more than material for another movie of the week.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Writers: John Wierick, Jacob Krueger
Stars: Stockard Channing, Shane Meier, Wendy Crewson
Following in the footsteps of “The Laramie Project,” HBO's superior “Shepard,” produced by Goldie Hawn, becomes trapped in made-for network conventions. Softer than it should be, it feels important but succumbs to the restrictions imposed on broadcast television. While there are specific scenes that don't typically appear in the Big 4 (an ultraviolent opening, two men kissing), it's the underlying themes that are completely whitewashed. This is a difficult topic and requires great risks; Whether it's his determination to come out, the community's reaction, or the legal wrangling, everything Shepard-related has become a hot topic, but director Roger Spottiswoode's take is pretty standard.
The narrative follows the Shepards as they travel from Wyoming to Europe, where their father Dennis (Waterston) moved the family due to his job. Matthew (Shane Meier) is shown alone in the past, detailing the months leading up to his death at the hands of Aaron McKinney (Phillips Edolls) and Russell Henderson (Paul Robbins), who are now serving life sentences in prison.
After Matthew falls for Paolo (Yani Gellman), a fellow boarding school theater student who doesn't quite share Matthew's enthusiasm for coming out in such a public way, his mother Judy (Channing) begins to take on a more active role in her life, supporting her orientation and trying to keep some kind of bond between her husband and son intact.
After graduating, Matthew enrolls at the University of Wyoming. Now officially out, he befriends members of a strong support group and slowly becomes comfortable with who he is. He finally packs his bags again and heads to Colorado, where he hopes to integrate with the help of his best friend Romaine (Kristen Thompson).
Feeling uncomfortable, anxious and bored, he quits his job just a few months later and returns home, a decision that leads to deadly circumstances that the entire world has become familiar with. After accepting McKinney and Harrington's offer to take him, they find him bloodied and battered in the field, tied to a fence. He died less than four days later.
Although the underlying plot revolves around Matthew's murder, this is the story of Judy and Dennis, and Waterston and Channing shine. The way they react (with anger, sympathy, and ultimately compassion) is a big help, as there are many other questions about the trial and about the town that linger after the closing credits. The final exchange is powerful, as Dennis, who had previously spoken out against clemency, gives in to Judy's wishes and asks for clemency so that the killers can live in honor of his son.
While Spottiswoode and screenwriters John Wierick and Jacob Krueger have chosen the intimate route (how Matthew's circle reacts to his confusion), it remains surprising that national attention is completely avoided, from President Clinton's response to the mobilization of various organizations and celebrities. A conscious choice, no doubt, but there is still something very small about that type of treatment, which is not exactly stimulating; “Laramie” feels more essential, while “Shepard” plays it safe.
Toronto fills all the locations very well, and d.p. John Bartley's color and black and white camera work is fluid.
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