The A.V. Club
Based on a rousing true story, Freeheld focuses on a dying woman crusading for gay rights, and features an imposing cast of Oscar nominees. But it doesn’t quite feel like the prestige pictures that blow through theaters this time of year; it’s a drama often dignified by its workmanlike approach, one that feels relatively judicious with its uplift.
EW
Freeheld holds a full hand going in: a timely gay rights drama based on an Oscar-winning documentary (Cynthia Wade’s 2007 short of the same name), penned by an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (Philadelphia’s Ron Nyswaner), and stacked with a first-class cast (led by yet another Oscar darling, last year’s Best Actress, Julianne Moore). It’s a shame, then, that the film feels like so much less than the sum of its celebrated parts. Moore stars as Laurel Hester, a closeted New Jersey cop whose anachronistic Farrah Fawcett waves are the only soft thing about her; she’s tough because she has to be, and a standout in her male-dominated department.
The Wrap
There’s a phenomenon going on in LGBT visibility right now that we might call the New Timidity; it’s one thing to hear the usual hate speech from the likes of Kim Davis and the Pontiff, but even community allies seem to be hedging their bets, worrying about what straight people might think and standing guard against anything or anyone who might be “too” gay.
Variety
It may be a sign of the sweeping changes that have occurred in the gay-rights arena that “Freeheld” — a fact-based drama about two New Jersey women who fought for due recognition of their domestic partnership in the mid-2000s — at times plays like a period piece, populated by cardboard bigots, flamboyant gay crusaders and other hoary relics of a less enlightened past. That may be cause for celebration, but it’s hardly a compliment.
