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THE NORMAL HEART
HBO, director Ryan Murphy, and screenwriter Larry Kramer collaborated on 2014's The Normal Heart, a raw, gut-wrenching, emotional powerhouse of a film that holds back nothing in its depiction of the panic and fear that swept through Manhattan during the original outbreak of "gay cancer", the foundation of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and a very unconventional love story.
This is emotional subject matter for a lot of people and the tendency is to get preachy in the presentation of a story like this, but this is a case where I can definitely forgive a little preachiness because the subject matter demands preachiness and said preachiness has been ignored or minimized for too long.
The film opens in 1981 when the first cases of the disease started appearing and a wheelchair bound doctor named Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts) shocked the gay community when, after treating the early cases, determined that the disease only afflicts homosexuals and that they all need to stop having sex for awhile. Emma encounters a gay writer named Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) who has her back in this idea and begins a campaign to fight this disease while beginning a romance with a semi-closeted writer for the New York Times named Felix Turner (Matt Bomer) which is in direct conflict with everything he and Emma are telling the rest of the gay community, a point driven home by the reveal that Ned and Felix actually met during the film's backstory at a gay bath house but Ned doesn't remember.
What I loved about Larry Kramer's screenplay, based on his play, is the balance it provides in terms of the fear and ignorance regarding this ugly disease. Naturally, we are privy to the heterosexual viewpoint, manifested primarily in Emma and in Ned's heterosexual brother (Albert Molina), who accepts who Ned is up to a point but we also get to see the ugly ramifications of the disease within the gay community, particularly the denial involved regarding the theory that their behavior triggers this disease and that if they want to live, they have to stop having sex. Not to mention the impact the disease has on gay couples themselves, and the random ugliness of it...how one partner is affected and the other isn't without rhyme or reason and how eventually both partners find the only way to deal with what is happening to them is to assign blame (other than their sexual orientation) and separate.
Director Ryan Murphy's passion for the subject matter is evident in every frame of this movie and it is pretty clear that he has lost people in his life that are important to him in this disease. He and Larry Kramer don't shy away from the bitchy gay sensibilities that ring true through all of this ugliness or the way the disease ravages the body...watching Felix's deterioration is particularly heart breaking.
Murphy also pulled some amazing performances from his hand-picked cast...Mark Ruffalo won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his raw nerve of a performance as Ned Weeks and is well-matched by Matt Bomer as Felix. Also loved Joe Mantello as Mickey Marcus, Jim Parsons as Tommy, Taylor Kitsch as Bruce and especially Molina, whose work here earned him an Emmy nomination. A one-of-a-kind motion picture experience that had me fighting tears all the way...and losing.
HBO, director Ryan Murphy, and screenwriter Larry Kramer collaborated on 2014's The Normal Heart, a raw, gut-wrenching, emotional powerhouse of a film that holds back nothing in its depiction of the panic and fear that swept through Manhattan during the original outbreak of "gay cancer", the foundation of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and a very unconventional love story.
This is emotional subject matter for a lot of people and the tendency is to get preachy in the presentation of a story like this, but this is a case where I can definitely forgive a little preachiness because the subject matter demands preachiness and said preachiness has been ignored or minimized for too long.
The film opens in 1981 when the first cases of the disease started appearing and a wheelchair bound doctor named Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts) shocked the gay community when, after treating the early cases, determined that the disease only afflicts homosexuals and that they all need to stop having sex for awhile. Emma encounters a gay writer named Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) who has her back in this idea and begins a campaign to fight this disease while beginning a romance with a semi-closeted writer for the New York Times named Felix Turner (Matt Bomer) which is in direct conflict with everything he and Emma are telling the rest of the gay community, a point driven home by the reveal that Ned and Felix actually met during the film's backstory at a gay bath house but Ned doesn't remember.
What I loved about Larry Kramer's screenplay, based on his play, is the balance it provides in terms of the fear and ignorance regarding this ugly disease. Naturally, we are privy to the heterosexual viewpoint, manifested primarily in Emma and in Ned's heterosexual brother (Albert Molina), who accepts who Ned is up to a point but we also get to see the ugly ramifications of the disease within the gay community, particularly the denial involved regarding the theory that their behavior triggers this disease and that if they want to live, they have to stop having sex. Not to mention the impact the disease has on gay couples themselves, and the random ugliness of it...how one partner is affected and the other isn't without rhyme or reason and how eventually both partners find the only way to deal with what is happening to them is to assign blame (other than their sexual orientation) and separate.
Director Ryan Murphy's passion for the subject matter is evident in every frame of this movie and it is pretty clear that he has lost people in his life that are important to him in this disease. He and Larry Kramer don't shy away from the bitchy gay sensibilities that ring true through all of this ugliness or the way the disease ravages the body...watching Felix's deterioration is particularly heart breaking.
Murphy also pulled some amazing performances from his hand-picked cast...Mark Ruffalo won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his raw nerve of a performance as Ned Weeks and is well-matched by Matt Bomer as Felix. Also loved Joe Mantello as Mickey Marcus, Jim Parsons as Tommy, Taylor Kitsch as Bruce and especially Molina, whose work here earned him an Emmy nomination. A one-of-a-kind motion picture experience that had me fighting tears all the way...and losing.