Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990 TAG: 9007070337
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Written by Craig Lucas and directed by Norman Rene, it intends to enlighten and evoke understanding as it spans the frightening growth of the disease during the 1980s. For the most part it succeeds, though the filmmakers may have made a more forceful and dramatically satisfying movie had they concentrated on fewer characters.
When the movie focuses on the determination of the wealthy David (Bruce Davison) to care for his dying companion Sean (Mark Lamos), it is deeply moving and completely convincing. Davison and Lamos are very fine actors and they give the movie its emotional anchor, though the filmmakers try to spread the story among eight other significant characters.
In attempting to capture the scale of the disease and its devastating effects this way, the filmmakers are pretty transparent in what they're trying to do.
Still, this is a well-acted and capably written and directed movie that confronts a catastrophic issue that too often is approached with the wrong kind of emotionalism.
The story begins in 1981 when news of a rare form of cancer among male homosexuals is just reaching the pages of The New York Times. It's a topic that's discussed with some interest by the movie's characters - all well-off, care-free New York City gays who work as entertainment lawyers, TV script writers, health club instructors, actors and the like.
Willy (Campbell Scott) and Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey) are designed to be the movie's main characters, giving it a continuity from beginning to end, but sometimes it's hard to tell. Mary-Louise Parker, the only woman in the cast, plays Fuzzy's devoted best friend. The story skips ahead from year to year, each jump bringing with it more devastation from the disease. But it's not a relentlessly grim movie; sometimes the characters react to their situations with humor and often with courage though fear of the disease always hovers.
The message the filmmakers most strongly deliver is that those who are most directly affected by AIDS should not only act responsibly but should commit themselves to fighting it by helping others and by spreading knowledge. That's a cue that society at large could well heed.
VIEWER GUIDE: A Samuel Goldwyn release at the Grandin Theatre (365-6177). An hour and 35 minutes. Rated R for language, brief nudity and sexual content.
by CNB