Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, here with a Slate, spoiler special on the new Iris Sacks film, Love is Strange, starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina.

Joining me here in the Slate studio is June Thomas, June.

Thank you. Dana, I'm so glad to be here to talk about this film.

I should identify you, but I don't even know how to say all the things you are. You're every woman.

All the things I have is. It's all in me. It's all in me.

Okay. I was just stop saying. You are the editor of Slate's Outward. Yes, it's LGBT

section. Outward and a culture critic. Oh my God. And also occasional guest on the Double X

podcast or regular guest? You're regular now. Regular, yes. So you can hear June in many, many places all over Slate. So June, you and I went to see Love is Strange the other night. And we had, I never really mentioned the conditions of viewing in a spoiler, because what's the point? They're usually just a press screening. But this was such an odd occasion. I felt like we'd gone through the looking glass into the other New York, the more fabulous New York, where everything is more beautiful and more just luxurious.

It was very, very strange for some reason.

The screening of Love is Strange that we went to was hosted by some sort of social club for attractive people.

Attractive well-dressed people.

In a very fancy sort of hotel club spot where they were handing out free margaritas,

and I could not make head or tail of what was going on. They were plying us with sponsors' snacks.

Well, and it wasn't just so that we had the free boo, we had free cocktails. Then when we got into the screening room,

there were free imported snacks. And then they announced that the director and two of the actors

were going to be there at the end, which was amazing. But like, is this how some people live? Yeah, it all felt very telly-ride film festival, like plonked into the middle of a normal workday. So that part was great. Maybe that primed us up to like the movie more than we would have otherwise. But I did quite like Love is Strange. What about you? I agree. It was, I mean, I think as many of the reviews, I haven't had a chance to read yours yet, Dana, but as many of the

reviews has said, it's a small movie, it's a gentle, like, it's, it's the opposite of what we

typically see in the summer. But it's, I thought it was really beautiful, yeah. So I guess we would classify this as a gay love story. It is a love story between two men. But this to me, what surprised me about it, and I'm seeing this in a lot of the coverage, too, is the extent to which it did not feel like a gay movie with a capital G. It didn't feel like something that necessarily was going to end up at, you know, a lesbian and gay film festival, that it was going to be making the circuit, making the rounds on that circuit. And it was sort of, to me, a promising step toward, you know, there being a love story that is just a love

story in its own terms. Yeah. Yeah, and they're very integrated into all kinds of worlds.

You know, they, yes, they're a gay couple that's been together for nearly 40 years. They do things

with family members. They do things with other gay people. They have a very wide social circle.

Right. It's not really a vision of a gay universe that's sort of sealed unto itself or has its own rules. It doesn't have some sort of feeling of like, look straight people. You're getting a tour of the gay world. They live in the world. Yeah. And it's a very sort of high-end New York world.

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