Uncle Frank

Director: Alan Ball
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 2.0

Beth (Sophia Lillis), from less-than-open-minded Creekville, South Carolina, goes to NYU to study where her Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany) is professor - after the family patriarch (Stephen Root) passes, her and him take a road trip back home and she learns about his homosexuality (which he's tried to keep hidden from the family) and his relationship with long-term partner Wally (Peter Macdissi).  For the first two thirds it's a mostly warm movie - presumably coming from a personal place from writer-director Ball - that alternates between being compassionate and a little condescending before falling apart in the last act when it turns hysterical (who leaves that in their Last Will and Testament?) and then, as if flipping a switch, everyone becomes just a teensy bit more tolerant to close it out.  Well, everyone with the exception of good ol' Aunt Butch ... who still thinks a good chunk of society will be cast into the Lake of Fire (which is where all the cool people are going to be anyway).