Sharon Gless (Queer as Folk) produces and stars in Hannah Free, from an award-winning play by Claudia Allen that sadly, on film, comes across as a lesbian version of The Notebook. The story is there: two women, their decades-long romance initiated at childhood, the ridiculous (and all too true) notion that they'd be kept apart in a nursing home due to lack of marriage or blood. Gless' performance is there: she's unwavering, though typically feisty, but the rest of the cast can't seem to keep up — either in flashbacks or in present-day. Some of the film's sequences would definitely lend themselves better to the stage — and since Gless came to act and the rest of the cast seemed to come to play, perhaps that's exactly where it should have stayed. Sat. Oct. 10, 7 p.m., Tampa Theatre —Ryan Jent
More reviews at the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival page.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.