Bridegroom (Documentary)

Inspired by the popular 11-minute YouTube video “It Could Happen to You,” this super highly emotional documentary will have sympathetic eyes crying buckets as it recaps how Shane Bitney Crone and Tom Bridegroom came out, met up and faced prejudice before and after Tom’s unexpected death. Like most documentaries, the story narration style is very simple. It relies on interviews with Shane's family and the couple's circle of friends, who describe how these two closeted small-town guys clicked when they met in Los Angeles, quickly forming the kind of relationship that romantics everywhere envy: moving in together, get a dog, start a social-media consulting business and travel the world as a couple. But not every fairy tale has a happy ending.

Both young men find the courage to come out to their parents. Shane, surprisingly finds support from not just his mother but his father as well eventually. Tom’s conservative parents were more conflicted, reacting with anger and denial. But eventually Tom's mother visits the couple and actually hangs out with them giving the impression throughout that she is supportive of the couple. We are enjoying and loving the couple as we hear from everyone till the tragedy happens. Tom falls off a four story building. Thats not what the entire pain is. It is what follows after the fall and subsequent death. Everyone involved was stunned, especially in the days that followed, as Crone discovered how unfair hospitals, the legal system and funerals can be to unmarried loved ones. We see how Tom's family completely shunned Shane and his family members, not acknowledging their presence and even banning them from attending the funeral. The results are devastating as we see the results of marriage Inequality rear its ugly head. We feel the pain in a shattered relationship.

Hopefully, documentaries like this will continue to elicit peoples hearts into making equal marriage available countrywide. There will always be people that disagree with same sex relationships, but if you have a heart you cannot deny that committed couples all deserve the dignity of the protections marriage affords.Thank you Shane and Tom for showing the world what true love is like. (7.5/10)