Bridegroom is the latest film that documents the lives of Shane Bitney Crone and his partner Tom Bridegroom – who tragically died ion 2011. The film begins by looking at their childhoods seperately, and Shane clearly had a hard time growing up – especially with accepting his sexuality. His parents were always loving, but coming from a small town in the US, being gay wasn’t something people accepted easily, making it hard to even admit this to himself.

He later moves to California where he meets Tom. The film uses real footage from Shane’s video diaries, photographs and interviews with Shane’s family and Tom’s friends to create a really powerful image of who Tom was. One cord that strikes over in this film is that these two people were so in love.
“They’re the kind of couple that make you believe in love.” as one friend states. And any idiot can see that (well, obviously not).

One day Tom accidentally fell off the roof while doing a photoshoot with a friend and after his death, his parents take his body home and Shane never saw him again. He was told that if he turned up at the funeral he would be attacked and so never got to say goodbye to his partner, how one should. If you’ve seen the online 10-minute viral, you’ll know all this already. It’s a heartbreaking story that only makes you realise why having equal rights is so important to all of us. And it just goes the show the true depth of evil that homophobia can reach…

“They’re Romeo and Romeo – Get over it.” states Shane’s great grandma, who doesn’t really know what’s going down. (I love her, she’s like the loopy nan I never had).

They’ve created a film that his [Tom] parent’s can never forget, and now they have to live with the fact that their closed-minded and frankly, disgusting decisions are being judged by people worldwide; the same way they judged their own son. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that people like that will ever change, let alone see the repercussions of their cruel actions. But even if it just motivates us to campaign harder for equal rights, it’s done something.  It’s an honest, emotional account of something real that strikes something in anyone human – and it definitely stayed on my mind afterwards.

Rating: 4/5

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMUk1Qn6hFE&w=560&h=315]

Other posts you might like:
>> ‘Bridegroom’ Trailer
>> Heartbreaking Marriage Equality Video
>> HBO’s New Gay Series ‘Looking’