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90Depictions of custody battles have become a cinematic staple, but few register with the heartfelt emotion of Any Day Now.
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Dec 4, 201290A stellar performance by Alan Cumming as the cross-dressing crooner-cum-caretaker is the picture's most marketable asset.
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75The biggest strength of the movie is the chemistry between Cumming and Isaac Leyva, a first-time feature film actor with Down syndrome, who does as much to make these scenes work as the experienced actors he's sharing scenes with.
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75The takeaways of the film are horror and hope: horror that institutionalized homophobia was so pervasive, hope that that intolerance is a thing of the past.
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75Cumming and Dillahunt are so terrific - as is Isaac Leyva as their ward - that they pull Any Day Now up from its more maudlin and melodramatic elements.
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75Its most redeeming quality is that it isn't so quick to neuter its queer characters into a package-friendly "gay couple" aesthetic a la Modern Family.
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70Cumming is the linchpin, and the actor does an exceptional job of moving across the vast galaxy of universal emotions about partners and parenthood. He takes us to the heart of the matter in ways that matter most.
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70An outraged, unblinking depiction of institutionalized homophobia three decades ago, when the prevailing court opinion in adoption cases was that exposing a child to a homosexual environment was harmful. Never mind that nobody else wants Marco.
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63Things go awry in the last act, as the movie stops dead for more songs and a tragic coda that seems forced and trite, rather than the three-hankie finale we've all earned. Still, Cumming is wonderful.
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60It's one thing to call a film about homophobia and human rights Any Day Now; it's another to actually have your character sing "I Shall Be Released" in full at the end. The intent is righteous. The dramatic overkill is deadly.
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55Cumming always gives good value, and his regular bursts into cabaret numbers are certainly an added bonus. Yet this instinctively ironic actor doesn't seem best suited to play the movie's most sentimental creation. A mouthy, heart-of-gold construct, Rudy dresses like Ratso Rizzo and comes on like The Fonz.
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50The film's title suggests the wry irony of hindsight: We've come a long way, baby, but we're not there yet. Any Day Now could do with a little more of that astringent humor and a little less sap.
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42Like another Tribeca hit given a quiet release, last year's "Puncture," Any Day Now feels the need to take its compelling true story and stack the deck in favor of what we know is the outcome, presenting all obstacles as engineered by sneering, callous villains with disdain for those who would trumpet a more progressive cause.
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40Director Travis Fine gives his period details flourish and lets Cumming and Dillahunt create well-rounded characters, but Any Day Now winds up treacly.
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40Straining for "teachable moments," the film has one noteworthy, unintentional function: to remind us that though LGBT rights are continually evolving, the laws of kitsch remain immutable.
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