I attended opening night of the play on Broadway in October 1993, and there was one moment late in the show when the entire audience gasped.
In the (flawed-but-still-excellent) play, Suzanne and Rob decide that she should abort their likely gay son and have another try at having a "normal" child. The gasp came with the news that there was a complication in the operating room and Suzanne can no longer have children.
This obviously opens up the whole question of which would be better: raising a gay child, or having no children at all?
But in this wildly-uneven film adaptation, Suzanne has the baby, gay brother David is reconciled with the Gold family (along with his partner, Steven), and Rob leaves Suzanne, although it is mentioned in the all-too-rosy epilogue that he becomes a devoted weekend dad.
In the play, Suzanne and Rob remain together, but childless, and David breaks his tenuous ties with his family. Hence: "The Twilight of the Golds."
The basic core thought - that of the far-reaching implications of pre-natal genetic testing - remains in the film, but all the misguided added material to "open-up" a stage-play for the screen (especially the whole opera subplot) really drags it down.
The acting is generally very good, with a surprisingly multi-layered performance from Jennifer Beals (who is doomed to be forever remembered only for "Flashdance"). Brendon Frasier (David), Jon Tenney (Rob), and Sean O'Bryan (Steven) are excellent. The two sets of annoyingly-stereotypical Jewish parents also shift the tone of the story and there were some poor choices in casting here.
I am amazed that playwright Jonathan Tolins (credited as co-writer of the screenplay and co-producer) permitted the outcome of his play to be so altered that I can only wonder if Showtime demanded the ridiculous "happy end" which basically erases the entire point of his play, so much that it makes even its title irrelevant.
In the (flawed-but-still-excellent) play, Suzanne and Rob decide that she should abort their likely gay son and have another try at having a "normal" child. The gasp came with the news that there was a complication in the operating room and Suzanne can no longer have children.
This obviously opens up the whole question of which would be better: raising a gay child, or having no children at all?
But in this wildly-uneven film adaptation, Suzanne has the baby, gay brother David is reconciled with the Gold family (along with his partner, Steven), and Rob leaves Suzanne, although it is mentioned in the all-too-rosy epilogue that he becomes a devoted weekend dad.
In the play, Suzanne and Rob remain together, but childless, and David breaks his tenuous ties with his family. Hence: "The Twilight of the Golds."
The basic core thought - that of the far-reaching implications of pre-natal genetic testing - remains in the film, but all the misguided added material to "open-up" a stage-play for the screen (especially the whole opera subplot) really drags it down.
The acting is generally very good, with a surprisingly multi-layered performance from Jennifer Beals (who is doomed to be forever remembered only for "Flashdance"). Brendon Frasier (David), Jon Tenney (Rob), and Sean O'Bryan (Steven) are excellent. The two sets of annoyingly-stereotypical Jewish parents also shift the tone of the story and there were some poor choices in casting here.
I am amazed that playwright Jonathan Tolins (credited as co-writer of the screenplay and co-producer) permitted the outcome of his play to be so altered that I can only wonder if Showtime demanded the ridiculous "happy end" which basically erases the entire point of his play, so much that it makes even its title irrelevant.