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'Freeheld' hits all the right emotional buttons

Peter Sollett's fact-based drama "Freeheld" stars Julianne Moore as a terminally ill New Jersey police detective fighting to leave her pension to her domestic partner (Ellen Page). But conservative county legislators, called freeholders, refuse to accept lesbians and gays as legal partners for county employees.

We've seen this brand of tear-wrenching, ennobling political dramas before, even though this one has been based on Cynthia Wade's Oscar-winning documentary short.

Sollett's film has as much in common with Moore's earlier Alzheimer's affliction drama "Still Alice" (which won her the Best Actress Oscar) as it does the doc.

"Freeheld" punches all the right buttons as a populist, feeling-good-about-feeling-bad underdog story. Innovative and cutting edge, it's not.

But well-crafted performances by Moore, as 23-year veteran cop Laurel Hester, and Page, as car mechanic/handywoman Stacie, inject this tired formula with just enough dramatic Geritol to give it purpose and power.

Chicago actor Michael Shannon (currently on screens in "99 Homes") adds punch as Hester's cop partner Dane Wells, the voice of outrage at how county officials provide more hubris than service.

Then there's Steve Carell's self-described "big, loud, gay Jew" - LGBT marriage activist Steven Goldstein - who blows into this serious drama like a furious funnel cloud, ripping up the scenery before chowing down on it.

We've seen this character many times before, too. But mostly in big, loud stereotypical comedies.

"Freeheld"

★ ★ ½

Opens at the Century Centre and River East 21 in Chicago and the Evanston Century 18. Rated PG-13 for language, sexual situations. 103 minutes.

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