Freeheld

A film about a real fight for rights in New Jersey. Laurel Hester has worked homicide for more than twenty years. She hides her private life at work. She meets Stacie and they buy a house together. Then Laurel is diagnosed with lung cancer. Learning her time is short, she asks for one thing: that her pension pass to Stacie. The law permits it, but the decision rests with the elected county board. The board refuses. The stated grounds are not legal; nobody says it outright but the reason is plain. A campaign begins. Her colleagues, the union and activists start coming to the board meetings. Laurel keeps attending as her illness advances. The subject is not the abstract side of the equality argument; it is who gets what one woman leaves behind before she dies. The narrative rests on real events, which had earlier been made into a documentary. Julianne Moore plays Laurel, Elliot Page plays Stacie, Michael Shannon her partner on the force and Steve Carell the activist. Peter Sollett directed. An honest example for anyone who likes drama based on real events. For a viewer who wants restraint, the film raises its emotional pitch in the last section.