My kid – my 31-year-old “kid” – co-directed a movie that, so far, is showing at film festivals in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Seattle and Provincetown. I attended the Seattle premiere last week, saw it twice on the big screen, and was impressed.

Is my rave review of Susanne Bartsch: On Top the result of “It’s my kid!” or is it truly a great movie? Here’s my take-away:

Directing: Top notch. But with my son half of the Anthony&Alex directing team (the latter), this can’t be a non-biased, professional-review category. I keep asking myself: “Am I viewing this through rose-colored glasses?” But I don’t think I am. The choices they made seem to flow, cover all bases and not get bogged down in art that means nothing.

Editing: Top notch. I met the film’s editor, Taryn Gould, in Seattle. She’s cool. She’s attractive. That makes the editing outstanding.

But I’m not sure what an editor does. I know she’s pivotal to the final product; I know the way the scenes were cut made me feel something, and it never seemed to drag (no pun intended) while I waited for the next tidbit of info. Editing is an art, and the person who cuts scenes has to do it with 50% technical skill and 50% heart, and I suspect my heart percentage is conservative.

But there has to be a lot of gray area to editing, probably with a “Here’s what I did” followed by the directors offering either an “I love it” or a “Go back and keep trying.”

Music: Liam Finn, also attending in Seattle, composed the music. While Bartsch has been surrounded by disco and post-disco music for 30 years, waltzing through it with her over-the-top wigs and lavish parties, the non-disco music helps the film focus more on the woman and her life than her parties and their excesses. Bartsch may have defined party music, but party music doesn’t define her.

Message: This is where the film seems to excel. Bartsch focuses on fashion, and it’s not “look good for a cocktail party” stuff, it’s “fashion as an art form” stuff. Her cadre of friends includes gays, straights and a mess of people somewhere in-between, outside and unknown. But the theme is one of acceptance.

The overriding message, however, seems to depend on what the viewer brings to it.

On the first night the film showed, a woman came up to Alex and said she felt empowered by this Bartsch woman who didn’t seem to care one iota what society thought as she plowed her way forward in four-inch eyelashes with attitude. It’s like the red hat ladies who remind themselves to be unconventional as they age. It empowers women.

For gays, Bartsch – seemingly without intending to – never saw sexual preference as good, bad or indifferent. It just is. Ironically, it’s an LBGTQ film without being a gay film. Bartsch herself is straight; her husband’s straight; some of her entourage is straight. The most gay thing about it? Once Bartsch’s friends started dying from AIDs, she created New York’s first charity event before most politicians even said the word.

Plus Bartsch is pretty much the woman every high-end drag queen aspires to be. She has drag nailed, and she doesn’t have to tape up any sex organs to do it.

For others, however, such as the movie’s editor who has no children, the film is about family. Bartsch has an adult child who talks about his upbringing, and through all her make-up, hype and yards of sequined fabric, her son remains the primary focus in her life.

In fact, the first movie reviewer on IMBD said the same thing: This is a film about families.

Watched in broad strokes, the movie is uplifting. The take-away: It doesn’t matter if you’re a mother, father, fashion diva or working woman. Do what you want from womb to tomb, have it all and look fabulous doing it.

And if you can’t, take comfort in the fact that Susanne Bartsch did.

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