"The Normal Heart"

Title: The normal Heart
Director: Ryan Murphy
Writer: Larry Kramer (screenplay)
Category: Drama, TV Movie
Duration: 132 min
Rate: 

Uhm this one is going to be hard to crack....I can't say that I didn't like it...but I found it to be not so accurate in some aspect and a little bit too cliched. I would love to blame it all on Ryan Murphy, but I never saw the original play so I don't want to write mean things about him just to discover that his adaptation is faithful to it, since Larry Kramer is involved in the making of the movie as well.

But, lets start from the beginning.

The plot of the story is quite simple. New York, early 1980's, the gay community is growing and is trying to reach some sort of freedom to love openly. Ned Weeks, character played by Mark Ruffalo and inspired by Larry Kramer himself (gay activist, writer and play-writer), is trying to raise awareness in the gay community about this new disease called HIV/AIDS which is spreading quickly. During that time it was considered to be a viral disease to which only gay people were exposed and because of this, to identify this new illness the press begins to use the name GRID (first mistake in the movie, we see a GRID sign used to indicate the Hospital wings in which the infected patients were quarantined suggesting that the term was used by doctors, but this term was in fact used by the press only).

While the cause of this massive spread is still unknown and nobody can say if it can be only contracted sexually or in any other way, it seems like the government doesn't give a flying f**k about all of this because "it only affects the gay community". It is for this very reason that Ned, who is starting to be surrounded by an ever growing number of sick friends, with the help of  Dr Emma Brookener, played by Julia Roberts, decides to create a support group to raise money for the medical research. But he is too straightforward and grumpy to be the face of the group..basically he was discriminated by his socially discriminated community(AH). However, since the problem is real and people's lives are in danger, he still fights hard to be heard and to create awareness and stop this disease to further spread.

The problem with this movie isn't the cast or the performances. Everyone did a great job, there are a lot of well known and brilliant actors who delivered powerful performances, even Julia Roberts gave it all and I was really impressed by the passion and effort they all put into this movie.

The real issue for me were in the accuracy in describing the illness, the editing and part of the plot.

The HIV was described poorly. Someone is blaming it on the fact the there wasn't enough time (132 min) to expand and give more info about it, so they had to compensate with graphic elements (the skin rush/cancer, the massive loos of weight etc. etc, which often appeared in the final stages of the disease, here it seems like they are the main cause of HIV). However, in my opinion, this could have been avoided by making a decision, either focus the movie on the disease or on the love story between Ned and Felix, played by an extremely talented Matt Bomer (BoNer for the female aficionados).

Instead, Murphy (or Kramer..I still don't know if the story is entirely the same in the play) decided to focus his attention on too many plots, and by doing so he had to cut a lot of things, including a better and more real illustration of HIV.

The other disturbing factor was the presence of so many, too many IMO, cliches about the gay community. Since both the director and the writer are openly gay..I was expecting a more accurate representation of this world, however they fell into the spectacularization of the gay society which complies with the idea that the straight community had about it during that time. Or maybe it really is how they describe it, with sequin, tight jeans and overcrowded naked nightclubs where everything is possible, and I'm completely wrong.

All in all, the movie wasn't bad in its entirety, but if you are looking for an accurate description of how dangerous and underestimated the HIV disease was..you should go elsewhere (I will suggest Dallas Buyers Club). Instead, if you are looking for a way to distract yourself with a movie this could be a good choice.

Till next time,

Fred.

Here the trailer of the movie: