ROLAND Emmerich’s Stonewall is a riot story on the right of gay citizens. It is a film about the infamous 1969 West Village uprising that marked a turning point in the LGBT-rights movement.
The film follows Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine), a young gay man from Indiana, as he arrives in Greenwich Village in 1968. He has a scholarship to Columbia, but his estranged parents back home haven’t signed his papers, so at the moment, he’s homeless and penniless.
But there’s hope on Christopher Street; he cracks a smile the first time he sees two men holding hands. He’s taken in and befriended by a boisterous group of street hustlers, in particular Ray/Ramona (Jonny Beauchamp), a young, street-savvy Latina who is clearly attracted to him.
Danny is integrated into the gay life and faces the incessant police raids at the Stonewall Inn, a mafia-owned bar and rendezvous of the gays.
Roland Emmerich threw up emotions at a time when the world is yearning for equal rights, he however fails to present reasons the society frowns at homosexuals.
One could safely say that the filmmaker is more protective of his identity than telling a story that should educate all.