Facing East
- Director: Will Swenson
- Writer: Carol Lynn Pearson
- Producer: Duane Andersen; Peter D. Brown
CGiii Comment
Facing East, an independent feature film based on the acclaimed stage play by Carol Lynn Pearson, is the story of Alex and Ruth McCormick, an upstanding Mormon couple who have done everything right. Theirs is an ideal life. Except for one flaw which has brought them now to a point of crisis. Their gay son Andrew, who had not been “healed” from his homosexuality despite every effort, and who had for a year been with a man that he loved, has just taken his own life in a flower bed beside the Salt Lake Mormon temple.
At the cemetery, Alex is unable to leave so that the open grave can be filled. He is not finished. He is desperate to understand what went wrong. His wife Ruth is relieved that at last her tortured boy is in God’s healing hands. Alex insists on holding another funeral at the grave site, one that speaks the truth, and he demands that Ruth stay and hear things that need to be said.
Unexpectedly Andrew’s partner Marcus arrives at the cemetery, thinking he would be alone. Ruth and Alex come to know their son in a way they never had before through the love and the anger of Marcus, and they come to realize the part they played in Andrew’s despair and his terrible, final act.
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