Our take
Activism is never easy, especially when there is scant information available and when public opinion is set against you. The Normal Heart captures the struggle for gay men during the AIDS crisis, and director Ryan Murphy infuses Larry Kramer’s original play with the melodramatic tendencies Murphy has, but for a cause such as this, an epidemic that might have calmed down in the public imagination but still active today, Murphy’s propensity for the trauma and the pain and Kramer’s script honors their activism, especially at its most emotionally heavy moments. The Normal Heart isn’t perfect, it’s even downright depressing, but it strikes true with the anger and sorrow the gay community needed to hold for decades.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Golden Globes
1 win · 2 noms
SAG Awards
1 win · 1 nom
DGA
1 nom
WGA
1 nom
The story
The story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, taking an unflinching look at the nation's sexual politics as gay activists and their allies in the medical community fight to expose the truth about the burgeoning epidemic to a city and nation in denial.
Elsewhere
"If anger and suffering were all there were to The Normal Heart, watching it would be torture. Luckily, it has heart to match its guts."
— Matt Zoller Seitz
"Perhaps it's time for a film about the AIDS crisis that's this emotional, in-your-face, and even manipulative. Be moved. Be angry."
— Brian Tallerico
New York, 1980s. Ned Weeks, a writer, tries to convince his friends to expose the truth about the emerging AIDs crisis, and to urge the institutions of America to pay attention to and raise funding for research and support for the then-unknown disease.
With the number of A-list actors, it’s surprising that this film was only released on television instead of the cinema, given the importance of the issue.
Rest in peace, Larry Kramer and the real life activists from the GMHC.
The details
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
