Alan Cumming delivers brilliant performance in ‘Any Day Now’

Garret Dillahunt and Alan Cumming star in 'Any Day Now'
Garret Dillahunt and Alan Cumming star in ‘Any Day Now’

Any Day Now is a powerful, compelling film that is very loosely based on a true story from the late 1970s.  It contains outstanding acting performances and excellent writing.

“Rudy” (Cumming) is a female impersonator in West Hollywood in 1979. One night he meets “Paul” (Dillahunt), who has only recently started to step out of the closet.  Soon he and Rudy are parked and Paul is having his first same-sex experience.  Afterward he drives Rudy home.  He finds out that Rudy would rather be singing as a man than lip-syncing in a drag show, but Rudy says he can’t afford to make demo tapes and send them out.

Rudy’s neighbor, “Marianna” (Allman) is playing her music loud and Rudy complains.  Then one night she doesn’t come home. Rudy ends up discovering her son, “Marco” (Leyva), who was left home alone.  Marco gets put into foster care when his mother is arrested, but runs away and goes home where Rudy finds him again. Rudy turns to Paul for help, but he is reluctant to help because he’s got a promising career with the district attorney’s office, which could be derailed if they discover he is a homosexual.

He eventually agrees to help, and the two soon find themselves in a relationship. They get temporary custody of Marco (after convincing the court they are ‘cousins’) while his mother is in jail.  Rudy and Paul move in together, become a committed couple and make a home for themselves and Marco, who thrives in their care and does well in the special education class where Rudy enrolls him.

Then the authorities discover that Rudy and Paul aren’t cousins.  Marco is taken from them and put back into foster care.  Rudy and Paul decide to file papers seeking permanent custody of Marco because this has some strategic advantages.  They are opposed by an attorney, “Lambert” (Henry) who will stop at nothing to win his case.


Writer/director Rufus Fine adapted an original screenplay by George Arthur Bloom.  The original was set in New York and didn’t include a love interest for the man seeking to adopt the “challenged” boy.  Not having seen the original, it at least sounds like this was an improvement.

Any Day Now is a two or three hanky movie and Alan Cumming’s performance is amazing.  So is his singing voice and the music for this film is one of its many positive attributes.  It very accurately captures the West Hollywood vibe of the late 1970s, and the discrimination gay men faced at the time.

This is a terrific movie and well worth the full price of admission.

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