Uncle Frank
Short description
In 1973, eighteen-year-old Beth leaves her rural home to study at a New York university where her uncle Frank teaches literature. She soon learns that Frank is gay and has long shared his life with his partner Wally, a relationship he has kept hidden from the rest of the family. When the family patriarch dies suddenly, Frank must return home for the funeral, with Beth and Wally travelling alongside him from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina. The journey forces him to confront his past and face his relatives.
Alan Ball wrote and directed the film, his second feature after Towelhead in 2008; he also produced it with Michael Costigan and Peter Macdissi. Paul Bettany plays Frank, Sophia Lillis plays Beth and Peter Macdissi plays Wally, with Steve Zahn, Stephen Root and Judy Greer among the supporting cast. Made by Miramax, Amazon Studios, Parts and Labor and COTA Films, it runs 95 minutes.
On IMDb the film holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 25,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 7.3 from about 460 votes, indicating a modest but consistently positive audience response. A critics' rating of 6.8 from 122 reviews places it somewhat below those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The story of Frank, played by Paul Bettany, is based to some extent on the life story of the father of the film’s director, screenwriter and producer Alan Ball.
- Alan Ball wrote the screenplay about South Carolina, but he himself was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. A reference to his place of birth is the scene at the beginning of the film when the characters of Stephen Root and Steve Zahn watch a football game featuring the “Atlanta Falcons” team.
- When Beth, played by Sophia Lillis, talks in the car about someone dying in a car accident at her school, it's a reference to an event from Alan Ball's own life. He was 13 years old when he and his older sister were driving somewhere, with her at the wheel, but they had an accident, and his sister died before his eyes. According to Ball, that's why all the scripts he writes contain a reference to death, or death is at the center of the narrative.
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