Hunky Nico Tortorella Stars in Queer Dramedy 'The Mattachine Family'

There has been a small influx of queer feature films in the past couple of years, but we still want MORE! Which is why we’re looking forward to watching nonbinary actor Nico Tortorella star in The Mattachine Family, a new dramedy about modern fatherhood and friendship told from a queer perspective.

Tortorella, best known for his role on Younger, plays Thomas, who along with his partner Oscar (Mamma Mia!’s Juan Pablo Di Pace) have spent years raising their foster son, but when the boy’s mother returns the two are left with an empty nest and even emptier hearts.

At the same time, Thomas’ best friend Leah, played by Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire (yes, you heard that right!), is grieving after suffering a miscarriage forcing the group of queer 30-somethings to mourn their losses together as they try to move on and figure out what it means to create a family.

The film also stars the absolutely iconic Heather Matarazzo, as well as Single Parents‘ Jake Choi, Hacks‘ Carl Clemons-Hopkins, and Teen Beach Movie‘s Garrett Clayton.

If you were wondering why the name of this film sounds familiar to you, It’s because it’s named after the historic gay rights organization the Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Steps in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, featured in the poster for the film, was named in honor of founder Harry Hay.

The Mattachine Family marks the feature-film directorial debut of Andy Vallentine, who also co-wrote the script alongside his husband Danny. The film is a very personal story for the two men because it stemmed from real conversations the couple had about fatherhood and “what it looks like for two gay men," Vallentine said in an official press statement.

“Thomas and Oscar both came of age during a time when certain rights like marriage and parenthood were not granted to gay people,” the director explained. “They had accepted and embraced the life they thought would be available to them as gay men. While the vast shift in gay rights in the last two decades has meant more freedoms for gay people, it also meant the loss of a community and collective identity predicated on the status as an outsider.

Thomas suddenly finds himself married to a man, and briefly, a father—two things he had never considered a possibility for himself—and is left to wonder about selfhood, friendship, and what it means to be a gay man in this time.”

Not only does the film center the queer perspective, but the writer, director and much of the main cast is queer, something that we’d love to see more of in LGBTQ+ films.

The Mattachine Family is premiering at the Seattle International Film Festival on Friday, May 12, with an encore screening the following afternoon. And will be available to watch via SIFF’s streaming platform from May 22 through 28. And hopefully it’ll get a wide release soon!