“How do people do this?” asks well-to-do New York book publisher Nicky (Luke Evans) in a state of exasperation. Nicky is in the thick of a bitter custody battle for his eight-year-old son Owen (Christopher Woodley), after Gabriel (Billy Porter), his partner of 13 years, has decided to call time on their relationship. It’s a well-worn premise in mainstream cinema — essayed most recently by Noah Baumbach’s acerbic Marriage Story, and still portrayed most famously in Robert Benton’s 1979 weepie Kramer vs. Kramer — but gay cinema has been slow to tackle the issue. With his second movie, the follow-up to the 2018 sci-fi Jonathan, Bill Oliver corrects that oversight with a beautifully judged human drama that dissects a dying marriage with humor and intelligence, drawing out an especially open and moving performance from Porter.
