‘The Mattachine Family’s’ filmmaker husbands discuss our gay dad obsession and their movie’s real-life parallels
A post shared by Andy Vallentine (@andyvallentine)Tonight may be the closing night of San Francisco’s Framline47—the Bay Area’s premier LGBTQ+ film festival—but the fun is far from over.Beginning today, a selection of fest titles will be available to stream virtually, no matter where you are in the U.S., via Frameline’s digital screen room.Among the exciting crop of streamable features is one we’ve had our eye on since its first announcement: The Mattachine Family, which tells the story of a loving couple whose lives are thrown for a loop when the foster son they’ve been caring for the past year suddenly returns to his birth mother.Nico Tortorella (Younger) and Juan Pablo Di Pace (Mamma Mia!) play Thomas and Oscar, respectively, the thirty-something partners who are now left to grapple with what it means to make a family and what they want out of their lives.Thankfully, they’ve got a supportive friend group—a chosen family, if you will—around them, including expecting mother Leah (Schitt’s Creek‘s Emily Hampshire), her partner Sonia (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Cloie Wyatt Taylor), and the carefree Jamie (Single Parents‘ Jake Choi).
And the cast is rounded out by a few more LGBTQ+ icons: The Princess Diaries‘ Heather Matarazzo, Hacks‘ Carl Clemons-Hopkins, and Teen Beach Movie‘s Garrett Clayton.For filmmaker husbands Andy and Danny Vallentine, The Mattachine Family is an incredibly personal story, one borne out of their questions about family and fatherhood—with some heartwarming parallels to their own lives.
