Actress Sigourney Weaver tears up
talking about her role as a mother who drove her gay son to suicide
in Prayers for Bobby.
The film, which first aired last year
on Lifetime Networks, is now available on DVD.
In Prayers for Bobby, Weaver
(Aliens, Jeffrey) plays a mother so blinded by homophobia that
she cannot see that she's driving her own gay son to suicide. It's
the true story of Mary Griffith's heartbreaking transformation from
staunch religious zealot to PFLAG-waiving gay activist after the
death of her son, Bobby, at the young age of 20.
In
a Monday appearance on CNN, an emotional Weaver talked about
meeting Mary Griffith.
“So moving to me to hear Mary talk
about how she realized later on – looking at his baby pictures –
God had wanted him to be gay. That was part of the package. That
was part of why he was so wonderful. And she loved him so much.”
(The trailer is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
In reviewing the film, Variety
called it “fresh and poignant” when comparing it to the
groundbreaking AIDS-themed An Early Frost, and praised the
filmmakers for keeping the movie “powerful without being unduly
preachy.”