Still upset Miley Cyrus never got her deserved Oscar love for “The Climb“? Well, she’s back again with another soaring ballad attached to a film with deeper significance: This one’s for the upcoming gay-rights biopic, Freeheld, which stars Julianne Moore as Laurel Hester, a New Jersey police lieutenant who fought for the right to leave her pension benefits to her girlfriend (Ellen Page) after Hester was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. It’s a personal story for Cyrus, who recently came out as both gender-fluid and pansexual, and started her Happy Hippie Foundation to aid young LGBTQ youth. We first heard a snippet of “Hands of Love” in a new trailer for the film, and now she’s released it in full. The song, which was written by Linda Perry, has Cyrus sounding anthemic as ever, using her gravelly falsetto to sing of freedom and hope when both seemed impossibly out of reach. Academy, are you listening?
