The Normal Heart
Jun. 3rd, 2014 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Overall, I liked this movie, but it was pretty uneven.
I think the main problem is that it was trying to be two movies at once, a drama and a documentary. And the conventions of those genres are such that it didn't fully succeed as either. Because the movie wants to deliver a lot of information, way too much of the dialogue is exposition of the kind no one would ever really say. Lots of Giles the in library info-dumping. That being said, the information was worth knowing. I was 2, I think, at the time this movie begins, and I realized while watching that I knew almost nothing about the start of the AIDS epidemic. For example, I didn't know that AIDS progressed so rapidly initially, that it first presented as skin lesions, and that it killed so damn many people before any real concerted effort to combat it was made.
Another thing I didn't realize was how resistant the gay community was to accepting that AIDS was spread sexually. One of the most powerful moments of the movie is when one of the older characters accuses the main character, Ned Weeks, of taking away from them the one thing they've fought so hard for--the right to sleep with each other. He condemns Ned for making sex dirty again by linking it to the virus, and it's an absolutely heartbreaking thing to watch because even as we sympathize with his pain, we know he's wrong.
The movie begins with Ned and his friends at a gay resort, and everyone is sleeping together and partying, and Ned's sorta watching from the outside. Ned feels like the rampant promiscuity in the gay community is detrimental to forming lasting relationships, and he doesn't want to have random sex with people. Eventually he meets someone he falls in love with, and they have a wonderful committed relationship, until Ned's partner contracts AIDS and dies over a matter of months. They had planned to go to the Yale Gay Dance together; Ned talked a lot about how much something like that would have meant to him when he was in college at Yale, and he wanted to take Felix. By the time the dance rolls around, Felix is dead, and the movie closes with a mirror of the opening--Ned in the corner watching all these people dancing, in love while he's alone.
I think the main problem is that it was trying to be two movies at once, a drama and a documentary. And the conventions of those genres are such that it didn't fully succeed as either. Because the movie wants to deliver a lot of information, way too much of the dialogue is exposition of the kind no one would ever really say. Lots of Giles the in library info-dumping. That being said, the information was worth knowing. I was 2, I think, at the time this movie begins, and I realized while watching that I knew almost nothing about the start of the AIDS epidemic. For example, I didn't know that AIDS progressed so rapidly initially, that it first presented as skin lesions, and that it killed so damn many people before any real concerted effort to combat it was made.
Another thing I didn't realize was how resistant the gay community was to accepting that AIDS was spread sexually. One of the most powerful moments of the movie is when one of the older characters accuses the main character, Ned Weeks, of taking away from them the one thing they've fought so hard for--the right to sleep with each other. He condemns Ned for making sex dirty again by linking it to the virus, and it's an absolutely heartbreaking thing to watch because even as we sympathize with his pain, we know he's wrong.
The movie begins with Ned and his friends at a gay resort, and everyone is sleeping together and partying, and Ned's sorta watching from the outside. Ned feels like the rampant promiscuity in the gay community is detrimental to forming lasting relationships, and he doesn't want to have random sex with people. Eventually he meets someone he falls in love with, and they have a wonderful committed relationship, until Ned's partner contracts AIDS and dies over a matter of months. They had planned to go to the Yale Gay Dance together; Ned talked a lot about how much something like that would have meant to him when he was in college at Yale, and he wanted to take Felix. By the time the dance rolls around, Felix is dead, and the movie closes with a mirror of the opening--Ned in the corner watching all these people dancing, in love while he's alone.
