The Normal Heart' Tells The Story Of Battle To Get Help Fighting AID

HBO's 'The Normal Heart' Tells The Story Of Battle To Get Help Fighting AIDS

The Normal Heart ," an HBO TV-movie adaptation of Larry Kramer's 1985 play, premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday (May 25). A period piece about the earliest days of the AIDS crisis, its action is contained in the years 1981-1984. Meaning, some of the younger actors in the cast aren't old enough to remember the terror of "gay cancer," or to have known the social and political boundaries that retarded the pursuit of its diagnosis and treatment.

Ryan Murphy has never shied away from trying new ideas on television, and while he is new to directing TV movies, The Normal Heart looks both topical and well-acted, as well as a tearjerker. It was a little surprising that the director eventually got the project off the ground with HBO rather than making The Normal Heart a big screen endeavor like Running with Scissors or Eat Pray Love , but HBO has always been on the cutting edge of television, and the new trailer for The Normal Heart seems to prove that bringing the project to TV was probably the right call.

Throughout the movie, loss and death loom as a constant reminder of why this fight is necessary. A Rolodex of the fallen is described as "a collection of cardboard tombstones," and when Ned's matinee-idol lover, the "too good to be true" Felix (a revelatory Matt Bomer ), succumbs to the virus, we experience what one character calls "bereavement overload." The Normal Heart , still remarkable in its social and dramatic impact nearly 30 years after it was first produced off-Broadway, joins past HBO triumphs And the Band Played On (1993) and Angels in America (2003) as cultural milestones that define a dark chapter of history with artful urgency.

Public complacency fired up many gay men and public health activists, among them writer Larry Kramer. He helped form the organization Act Up, a radical group bent on getting help for people with the disease. But Kramer may be better known for his play. The Normal Heart opened in New York in 1985, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The semi-autobiographical story about a New York writer's fight for AIDS research was the first play about the disease.”

The Normal Heart' Tells The Story Of Battle To Get Help Fighting AID 2014-05-26T02:49:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Unknown