A FLAWED - BUT VERY MOVING - FILM “The Normal Heart” - the new film version of Larry Kramer’s play - was shown on Soho last night and it was a complicated experience. I’m not that fond of the original play, although it was a huge success, the first work to deal with the AIDS crisis, when audiences were hungry to know more. It was too much polemic for me (Kramer shouting at the top of his voice demanding action), and not enough play. But it was up-to-the-minute, then, and with the fear of AIDS increasing exponentially, the play surely has an important place in the history. Not so much now, perhaps, or the polemic, anyway. Pretty much everything Kramer wanted has happened and AIDS - while not defeated, is no longer a death sentence. So I guess the new movie has little meaning for the younger generation, except as moving drama (which it sometimes undoubtedly is) but not a great deal of meaning. But for those of us who lived through the AIDS crisis and felt overwhelmed by it and powerless, it is sometimes powerful stuff. As pure history there are better examples, such as the wonderful documentary “How to Survive a Plague”, which covers much of the same territory but with a far broader vision, one that somewhat reduces the role Kramer played in it all. “The Normal Heart” doesn’t do that. It is Kramer (lightly disguised as the character Ned) front and centre, warts and all, the good and the bad. Because Kramer wrote the screenplay, there is always the thought that it is a vanity piece, but happily, the wonderful performances by others over-ride that. And what performances they are, some of New York’s finest actors strutting their stuff magnificently. To bring some order to this, at the start of the AIDS crisis, Kramer/Ned was an early activist, stridently, angrily, demanding action in the face of governmental passivity. He formed the GMHC - the Gay Men’s Health Crisis - which was in the vanguard of all the early activism. But Kramer/Ned believed in a take no prisoners approach, while many of his co-workers (co-fighters?) were more inclined to be less confrontational. This battle is the core of the movie and eventually Kramer/Ned loses, sacked from his position with GMHC. Which is a bit of a structural problem, because the movie ends with Kramer/Ned alone - looking like a loser - when action was about to happen, but without him. There is some really good stuff in the movie about all this, and I shall not easily forget the scene when Mickey, a co-worker played by Joe Mantello, rounds on Ned/Kramer in a great passionate speech of despair, mingled with anger and helplessness. You’ve seen Mr. Mantello in all sorts of smaller roles, but here he is given his head and acquits himself triumphantly. The same is true of all the cast, especially Taylor Kitsch as Bruce Niles, memorably describing the indignities heaped on a dead friend (hospitals refused to touch the body or even issue a death certificate) and Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”) as Tommy Boatwright, giving a brilliantly delineated performance. And then there’s Julia Roberts, as Dr. Emma Brookner, throwing glamour to the winds and really turning it on. Star of the show, for my money, is Mark Bomer as Felix, Ned/Kramer’s lover, whom we first meet as a handsome, vibrant, engaging young man, and last see as an AIDS ravaged, dying young man. The trick is not just in the diet - filming was stopped for several weeks so that the actor could go on a crash diet and lose 25 kilos, although the effect of that is frightening to see. This is what AIDS looked like. The strength of Mr, Bomer’s performance is he is completely unafraid to play against his natural charm and good looks, and deliver some of the more disturbing scenes in the film. And I have to commend Mr Kramer’s writing here. When he is writing other characters is at the top of his not inconsiderable game. When he is writing himself - Ned - he is much less secure. Mr. Kramer knows that many people thought him a arsehole, but he writes it as if to justify himself, and keeps taking the edge off his arsehole-ish-ness, so that the (likeable) Ned seems simply cruel to his friends and worse - stupid. Mark Ruffalo, as Ned/Kramer, does amazing work, especially in the scenes with Felix, when he seems like a kid, considerate human being, but this is a disaster for the other Ned, the one who is an arsehole to his friends. In many ways, the film is accurate to the times and in other ways it is too informed by modern sensibility. I hated the last scene between Ned and Felix, when he and Ned “marry,” because it is a soap operate contrivance in a film that doesn’t need such tricks. Yet again, the scene is another triumph for Mark Bomer, who makes me believe in spite of myself. Some have dismissed the film as (soap) operatic, even melodramatic, and at times it is that, too. It isnt a complete picture of the times, it is one man’s reaction to an awful crisis - the potential annihilation of an entire generation of gay men, and the film is completely lacking in hope, because it is all about the crisis and doesn’t even hint at the resolution. Still, it is powerfully moving, or was for me. My tears stared about a third of the way in and didnt end until the end, even when there were times when my critical brain was on edge. It reminded of too many I have lost, all the many friends with whom I had expected to grow old and share the journey of life together, who simply aren’t there any more and havent been for so many years. And I miss them like stink and the film reminded me too sharply of just how much they meant to me and how very much I miss them. So I may not be the best judge of the film, and to anyone who has a different opinion of it, I can only say this is very much how it was, for me. hbo/movies/the-normal-heart#/
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 02:20:55 +0000
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