Director Stephen Kijak does something disarmingly unexpected with the opening minutes of his biographical documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.” He gives us the de rigueur rapid-fire “why he mattered” montage, of course; it’s all but written into law for films like this. But while most bio-docs make that their credit sequence (usually ending on a profound quote from the subject, and then a hard cut to title), this one puts it after the title and the real opening; the pre-title sequence here is a mini-fantasia, a very queer visualization of one of Hudson’s dreams, a vivid illustration of how he saw himself. It’s the tiniest little shift, but it matters, in terms of what this film is and how it sees its subject: as a gay man first, and as a movie star second.
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Because that is much of what “All That Heaven Allowed” is about, as it’s much of what Rock Hudson’s life was: a study of the sharp contrast between a public persona and a private life. Hudson spent his career playing characters who were extremely trad-masculine and straight; even his stage name was almost a parody of masculinity. It was given to him by his agent, Henry Willson, a gay man himself who nevertheless schooled his (mostly male, mostly young, mostly beautiful, often gay) clients in how to look, act, and present as heterosexual. 
So the film is not just a rundown of Hudson’s life and accomplishments—though it does that well, via its efficient zip through his fascinating backstory and meticulous analysis of his career highs and lows. But it’s also an insightful portrait of closeted gay Hollywood. We’re privy to its intricacies and logistics, and the many landmines Hudson and actors like him had to navigate, particularly the twin challenges of the fan magazines (which dutifully reported on the chaste relationships of handsome male “roommates” and “best friends”) and the muckracking tabloids (which were constantly looking to out stars for, among other things, their “deviant behavior”).  
Taking a cue from Mark Rappaport’s ingenious 1992 compilation film “Rock Hudson’s Home Movies,” Kijak cleverly interpolates copious clips from Hudson’s own films, which were loaded with double meaning and subtextual resonance (in just one of many, he’s admonished, “Hiding in closets isn’t going to cure you”), or even featured entire plotlines that created a “house of mirrors” quality—like the Doris Day movies, in which he frequently feigned homosexuality as a plot device. “Rock Hudson is playing a man called Rock Hudson who is the personification of Americana,” we’re told. “The identity was given to him, and he slipped into it—and played it for the rest of his life.”
But Kijak is equally adept at translating the specifics of a movie star finding his niche and persona. You hear Hudson straining in interviews to explain his star quality, and trying to figure out how to stretch it; particular attention is paid to his turn in John Frankenheimer’s 1966 thriller “Seconds,” and in close-reading that especially rich picture and performance.
What will be new to many viewers is the picture’s candid and unapologetic exploration of Hudson’s queerness. We hear from numerous “playmates,” and are even assured that “Rock had a sizable dick”; author Armistead Maupin tells the story of how Hudson seduced him (“Every movie I’d ever seen him in was playing before my eyes”). Another playmate recalls their visit to a San Francisco sex shop, and yet another recalls the one pass Hudson made at him, explaining it thus: “I was 23, and a lot cuter!” We know this story is headed towards tragedy, but in these sequences especially, “All That Heaven Allowed” is a lot of fun; the cutting is jazzy—snappy montages, split screen, etc.—and the storytelling is witty, sharp, and occasionally a little bit catty.
That spirit changes when Kijak reaches the twin harbingers of doom in the early 1980s: the election of Ronald Reagan, and the discovery of an inexplicable but fatal disease in California. As we move into his last days, the filmmaker powerfully intercuts his painful struggle, the vile abandonment of Nancy Reagan (“She did not feel this was something the White House should get into,” reads the official White House correspondence), and the tone-deaf coverage of sickness (as well as the “panic” that gripped Hollywood after his announcement). And, to greater effect than the gimmickry might suggest, the clips from his films continue; it works, because Kijack understands that the movies weren’t just what Hudson did, but what he was. They were not his ultimate legacy, however; it was the disease that took him, and the life he led so privately before it, and however he might have attempted to hide those things, Rock Hudson ended up de-stigmatizing and raising awareness. He led a fascinating, complicated, often contradictory life, and “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” does it justice. [A-]
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