This aesthetically undistinguished yet still engrossing doc follows the emotionally charged lead-up to the vote on Question One, a 2009 Maine referendum that put the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples on the state ballot. The film attempts to fairly portray all sides of the debate, following both pro- and antimarriage activists from the first days of the campaign through a suspenseful election night. Gay codirector Joseph Fox hid his sexuality in order to get as close to the antimarriage “Yes on One” team as possible, so the sense that you know where the film stands outside its own purported objectivity is always prevalent. Nonetheless, all the interviewees are given human faces, and in the case of ambivalent “Yes” cochairman Marc Mutty a profoundly tragic arc that’s near-Shakespearean.
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