BRIDEGROOM
There’s a YouTube video that begins with the words, “What if tragedy struck the one you loved? Would you be prepared?” The video is called It Could Happen To You (http://youtu.be/ pR9gyloyOjM) and in it Shane Bitney Crone describes his six-year relationship with his partner Tom Bridegroom and Tom’s accidental death. The video was posted in May 2012, and has had close to 5 million views.
Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a successful Hollywood producer, met Shane and Tom at a wedding, and, upon later hearing about the video and Shane’s story, stepped in to turn the 10-minute video into a full-length documentary. Thomason directed and, along with Crone, coproduced an emotional and powerful story, but the journey is Crone’s, from his being in a happy, loving relationship living the dream in Los Angeles, to when it all comes crashing down when Bridegroom dies in an unexpected accident.
Shane’s family had had no problem with his sexuality, but Tom’s family couldn’t accept it or his and Shane’s relationship. Visiting them one Christmas, Tom’s father threatened him with a gun while his mother said homosexuality was a sin. Then on 7 May 2011, Tom fell to his death off the rooftop of his and Shane’s apartment building.
Crone was 26 when Tom died at the age of 29 and besides being distraught over Tom’s death he also had to deal with his partner’s family, who blamed Crone for “converting” Tom and then barred him from the funeral.
At the hospital Shane found he had no rights to any information about Tom, and after Tom’s mother left with his body Shane never heard from her again. He did, however, receive a call from a member of the family telling him he wasn’t welcome at the funeral. Shane was also not mentioned in the funeral program or obituary: he had been the most important person in Tom’s life, a life from which he had now been simply erased.
Bridegroom the documentary begins slowly with Shane telling the story of how he and Tom met and quickly became boyfriends. The movie shows clips of the two of them enjoying their lives together as best friends, partners, lovers and housemates – two men who are truly happy and in love.
The music used in the film is perfect and appropriate, including a song Tom and his friend Colleen McMahon sang, as well as a track by Shane (along with McMahon), and a song from Adam Lambert. But the one song in the film that truly describes Tom is “Beautiful Boy”, written and sung by McMahon. It will simply break your heart, as will this film.
At last year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, President Bill Clinton introduced the film as “really, on one level, a wonderful, sad, heartbreaking yet exhilarating and life-affirming story; and on another level, it’s a story about our nation’s struggle to make one more step in forming a more perfect union, for which marriage is both the symbol and substance.” Bridegroom went on to win the audience nonfiction award at the film festival.
And all of this because of the 10-minute video Shane Bitney Crone posted to YouTube in tribute to his late partner Tom Bridegroom on the first anniversary of his death.