Swan Song: Misty Water Colored Memories

Udo Kier has been around since the 70s, making films regularly. He could always be counted upon to give his all in everything he did, but he never quite became a star, though the European actor has amassed a large cult following. With his flawless performance in the bittersweet Swan Song, Kier might, at age 76, finally have played a role which will be remembered come Oscar time. 

Kier plays Pat, a retired hairdresser residing in an assisted living facility. He doesn’t have too much going on in his life. A stroke survivor, he spends much of his time sneaking cigarettes to the chagrin of his nurse. One day he receives a visitor. 

Pat is told by a lawyer that his former client Rita (Linda Evans) has passed on. He and Rita hadn’t spoken in years, they had a falling out when she took her business to the salon across the street, which is run by Pat’s former employee. Pat is offered $25,000 to dress Rita’s hair for her funeral. 

Most of the film follows Pat while he walks to Rita’s house. As he walks, he revisits his past, bringing up a plethora of emotions. Pat visits the grave of his partner, who had died of AIDS years earlier. He goes to the house he once lived in, only to find that it has been torn down. He also has a brief encounter with his former employee (a restrained Jennifer Coolidge, an actress best known for her comic flair.) The meeting is somewhat awkward, as she is the woman who ran off with all of Pat’s clients, forcing him to retire.

In one particularly moving segment, Pat stops in at a gay bar he used to frequent during his younger years. It’s the bar’s last night, and Pat makes the most of it, taking to the stage and performing in the club’s drag show. At Rita’s house Pat meets her semi-closeted, gay grandson. 

The film was written and directed by Todd Stephens, a filmmaker who for years has worked in independent queer cinema. The 1998, queer, coming-of-age drama Edge of Seventeen, which Stephens wrote, has become a seminal, queer classic. With Swan Song, Stephens has produced his masterpiece. His film beautifully captures the drabness of life in a small town where not much of anything happens. But there’s actually a great deal going on beneath the surface, as Stephens kicks in the closet door of small-town America. Stephens’ screenplay offers many heart-wrenching scenes for Kier to play. Pat, based on a real-life gay man from Sandusky, OH, where the film is set, is a character of deep emotions and many layers.

Kier is incredible. The actor digs deep and finds Pat’s soul. Scenes such as the visit to the cemetery, or an early scene in which Pat shares a cigarette with a catatonic woman at the senior home where he lives, are rich, emotional, and unforgettable. This is the role Kier has been waiting for his whole life. It’s the part he was born to play.

Ultimately, Swan Song stands as the final curtain for a man coming to terms with his life. It’s a deeply satisfying film.

Swan Song is playing at the Boedecker Theater in Boulder.