User Reviews

Larry Kramer adapted his much honored play 1985 play THE NORMAL HEART, an autobiographical reenactment of the period of time from 1980 to 1984 when the mysterious scourge of AIDS decimated thousands of gay men. Ryan Murphy sensitively directs a cast of some of the finest actors in cinema and a cadre of actors form the stage in a heart-stopping reminder of a time when it seemed the world might just be ending.

The film focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo), the gay Jewish- American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. Ned prefers loud public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends, and closeted lover Felix Turner (Matt Bomer), none of whom are prepared to throw themselves into the media spotlight. Their differences of opinion lead to frequent arguments that threaten to undermine their mutual goal. But that is only part of the territory this film covers – from the newly post- Stonewall sexual freedom as highlighted on Fire Island, to the gradual finding of Kaposi's sarcoma as badges on dying men, to 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. The film is more like and opera than a play, with extended monologues by the polio stricken Dr Emma Brookner (a magnificent Julia Roberts), the agonizing anger of Mickey Marcus (Joe Mantello in an unforgettable performance), the active but cautious Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitsch proving he can handle major roles in drama), the cautious reporter Felix Turner (Matt Bomer in a career making role) as he gradually succumbs to Aids in the arms of his lover Ned Weeks, the standard bearer Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons), and smaller but equally impressive roles played by Alfred Molina, Jonathan Groff, Denis O'Hare, Danielle Ferland and on and on.

But it is the towering performance by Mark Ruffalo who manages to bring the audience into the heart of the film. It is an Emmy worthy performance and certainly one for the finest roles Ruffalo has ever mastered. Cliff Martinez manages the musical score with aplomb. The film contains some nudity and some suggestive innuendos, but they all seem important to the story and are not just placed in the film for effect. This is a film that will stun, cause tears, and make a lot of older people weep at the trials of the period reflected and the losses of loved ones during that medical travesty.

Make no mistake, what this film is about, is a human being's one man crusade of passion -- Ned Weeks passion. What you'll see throughout this film, is those who care more for politics and bureaucracy than hard, gut-wrenching, passion. What do you do when you know what you're saying is right, and those around you know its right too..but just want you to 'calm it down' to be heard. Ned Weeks friends were dying all around him, even those he didn't know were dying, and he wanted those in power to take action -- the people in his own circle -- but they felt the way he was projecting "the message" was diminishing their strides for acceptance and freedom to "the group". What to do? Ryan Murphy directs a film version of an off-Broadway play of the mid 80s from Larry Kramer who knows of what he speaks (and a Broadway Tony winning revival a few years ago), as he also helped/founded many AIDS groups. His main character Ned seemed to be a voice in a time where this type of voice was not listed to, given a platform, even shunned against to try to bring attention to what was happening to gay men at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. When nobody in your group listens to your valid points to stop death as well as the local, State or Federal government -- imagine the hell you'll face! That's the hell Ned faced.

For me, if the film was more directed on Ned's strong arm advocacy, I might've scored it higher because that was the important point I took away from the film. Mark Ruffalo did fine, but I think he would have been better if he had more of the 'advocacy' to work with. It upset me to see Ned Weeks battle against those he was trying to help. I didn't see him as an egotistical, self-centered, know it all as they claimed, but as someone who was pushy, loud and told the truth to gay men when the truth was hard to take; and he had no problem getting into the face of those who cold spread that message as he felt, it would save lives. Even the one that eventually hit home.

I appreciate Director Murphy's unflinching realness associated with behaviors at that time, from the clandescent gay sexual encounters to the monogamous ones, all under the beginnings of a real impending health crisis. There are a few stories of men who were treated like dirt as the disease consumed them in life and death, and it is heart wrenching to watch that's to Murphy's direction. And by the way, this is not fiction, and you re-live what many did back then. Julia Roberts as Emma was to show the very, very few people in the medical profession who 'tried' at that time only to get ignored (shunned, treated ignorantly, etc.) as well, and she was quite New York 80s in her portrayal which made her performance quite believable.

It's hard not to compare this to the other films about the early days of AIDS, but this is a different tale, and should be seen as such. Some may not because the advocacy focus get's played down at points when it should have been the hard focus. It's an advocacy and bureaucracy tale, and there is where the film falters as it does skew a bit away from that at times. To focus on Ned Weeks struggle really comes when he goes head to head with what he thought was his compatriots, comes in the latter part of the film. New York bureaucracy and politics was hell, even moreso than Washington at that time, but even worse than that, is the in-fighting. Joe Mantello as Micky really sums this up very, very well and is one of the best performances here. Dennis O'Hare brought a chill to my spine as an "Ed Kotch" representative, a small but pivotal part for this story -- and I bring this up because I wanted more seen of this too to drive this story home.

Matt Bonner takes on the part of Ned's lover Felix who becomes infected with AIDS, and goes through one of the most heartbreaking metamorphoses seen in film as the disease progresses. The thing is, after all the other films one may expect this type of part, but it is Director Murphy along with Bonner that makes this one go the distance as it doesn't flinch from every gory detail. There is nothing romantic about this, it is a disease shown that just doesn't affect his life, but the life of those around him -- like any other terminal illness. Again where the film breakdown is in this ending, which I think was more "contemporary" (2014) than taking the hard line of Ned and his 'beating himself up' for not being more of an advocate to 'save' his lover.

Let me also add that Jim Parson's role as Tommy is another great performance as someone caught in the middle. There is a line Tommy says at a funeral that just brings me to tears, and if it doesn't touch anyone out there, then maybe...they don't have a normal heart. I hope everyone gives this a look because it's not over, and we have much to learn from the past.

unpublished excerpts from my abridged review The Normal Heart 2014 at http://www.moviequotesandmore.com

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Likely the most honest answer to Ned's demanding query regarding the unspoken conspiracy of damning silence on the part of the media and key political figures is that the latter considered the so-called "gay cancer" to be just that, an illness affecting only gay men and therefore unimportant to to the welfare of the larger society.

More bluntly, as homophobic posters proclaimed, many people believed that "AIDS is the cure for gays." The Normal Heart can be likened to a horror film, as perceptive critics have noted; healthy young men are falling victim at a terrifying rate to a hovering specter of death that cannot be identified or defeated. More frightening still, there is no rescue team of heroes come to save the day, only a pervasive and chilling quiet on all fronts. Thousands and thousands die, mourned by helpless friends and lovers and family, yet are otherwise isolated by an uncaring world that persists in living in complacent ignorance or, even more distressingly, a gleeful sense of vindicated prejudice.

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The Normal Heart opens on a conspicuously hedonist beach gathering populated by sculpted male bodies reveling in newfound sexual freedom. The gay celebration is temporarily brought to a halt when the birthday boy collapses. Though he seems to speedily recover, the scene is a harbinger of grim events to come. Seeing friends and acquaintances suddenly sinking into deathly illness, Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) seeks the help of childhood polio-stricken Dr. Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), the only medical practitioner who cares to take on AIDS patients. Though she rightly suspects that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and counsels gay men to to abstain, the audience, unwilling to surrender the sexual pursuits they view as a sign of liberation, mocks her advice. "I hope she winds this up," one man jeers, "because I've got a tiny little orgy in New Rochelle."

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At one point Felix says an inspiring line, "Men don't naturally not love. They learn not to," which would normally be poetic did it not so suddenly interrupt an otherwise mundane dialogue as though he is engaging in a different conversation, with someone else. On that note, the exchanges between Ned and Felix border on tediousness--Bomer and Ruffalo gamely attempt to emote lines in such as a way as to show their tenderness for each other, but the result, due more to questionable dialogue than anything else, is discouragingly dull. Generally one (Ned) will relate a blandly un-virtuous story, and the other (Felix) will chuckle as though Ned has said something clever and worthy of amusement. The foundation of their relationship seems extremely unsound, beginning as it does with a weird near-pornographic sequence. Note that I am not necessarily bothered by the bodily nudity and explicitness of their actions, but I feel their first meeting and the immediateness of their ensuing sexual relations is dreadfully abrupt; by mentioning pornography I am referring to the poor setup of story regularly used in such graphic films in order to quickly sprint to the sex scene. Paraphrasing the words of Ned in his book, sexual promiscuity can, if not preclude love, then cheapen it. Perhaps I speak from an overly conservative stance and therefore I do not have real understanding of the circumstances under which said promiscuity operated.

Much has already been made of Bomer's striking weight loss, so I will only briefly mention that it is absolutely startling behold Felix's rapid debilitation and weakness. As his illness accelerates, Felix becomes a better formed personality in terms of the script and Bomer starts to more fully inhabit him as a character, rather than only using his signature charm to play Felix. I believe that Ruffalo, whose Ned is supposed to be infamous for his inability to rein in his passions, does not adequately fill his role. The scene in which Ned in a moment of hopeless exasperation throws vegetables at a despairing Felix, approaches the illusion of truth but does not reach far enough.

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The fairly frequent monologues by the main characters are uneasily, sometimes even blatantly, inserted and cause the script to droop in revealing heavy-handedness that the actors cannot overcome.

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Disdain for and fear of the gay community and thus the social and political decision to do nothing is a diseased spot on the history of civil rights activism. In persisting to ignore the crisis people in positions of authority allowed the disease to continue spreading like the lesions on the body of an AIDs victim, unstoppable and incurable.

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Please note that the above are incomplete thoughts finalized in the actual review on the moviequotes website.