Loggerheads is a little gem of a film that follows three different people's stories: a young adopted gay man who is HIV positive, his adoptive mother and his birth mother.
This scene features the wonderful Tess Harper (with the brilliant blue eyes), who plays the adoptive mother, Elizabeth. She has received a phone call from her estranged son saying he wants to see her because his health is failing. She goes to the church where her husband (Chris Sarandon) is the minister and tells him the news...but he can't bring himself to face his son...either out of prejudice against his sexuality or out of shame for how he treated his son in the past. Elizabeth, who has always been the diligent minister's wife and followed his lead, walks out in the middle of the service to be with her son.
This is a pretty boring description of a quietly powerful scene. Elizabeth has always gone along with whatever her husband believed, even when it meant turning her back on her son. The movie depicts her gradual inner growth as a woman regaining her own voice. This is illustrated in small little rebellions throughout: smoking when her husband is away, not asking the new neighbors over for church, seeking knowledge of her son's well-being from the neighbor who still keeps in touch, etc. Little things that lead to this act of walking out of his sermon.
Tess Harper's performance in this film is one that needs to be seen several times in order to fully appreciate her gifts of subtlety and subtext. Another great scene from her: when she runs into her son's former lover at the florist.
By the way, Bonnie Hunt also give a fantastic performance as the birth mother in a role that requires much more dramatic skill than her previous films.
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