The Normal Heart arrives on HBO with somewhat lofty expectations, and yet, being a Ryan Murphy production, I wouldn’t blame anyone for approaching it with a healthy measure of skepticism, as well. It’s in many ways a spiritual sequel to Angels in America, another adaptation by HBO of another well-regarded period piece about the AIDS crisis. The Normal Heart has quite a bit in common with that miniseries, but where Angels used the religious and the supernatural to underpin the melodrama at its core, The Normal Heart has no such crutch. As a result, and as is unsurprising for a Ryan Murphy joint, what we get is an often uneven, and yet often incredibly moving, piece of melodrama that occasionally transcends those trappings, and becomes plain drama.
The film is written by Larry Kramer, based on his 1985 play, and many of its issues can be traced back to the source material. Its subject matter is firmly in Murphy’s wheelhouse, and is in many ways perfectly suited to his directorial style. There is a great sense of atmosphere, of time and place; Murphy, with considerable assistance from Kramer, perfectly captures the gay experience of the eighties, and best of all, presents multiple gay perspectives within the film. It’s obviously very personal material for Murphy, and for the most part his best instincts are on display here.
Like most of his work it tends toward melodrama, and this is not always to the film’s benefit, especially when the script also tends toward the didactic. Much of the dialogue, and at times entire scenes, feel less like drama, and more like actors quoting from Wikipedia. It can at times be overbearing, too over the nose. But at other times, there is a raw power to the material, and at these times, it’s Murphy’s direction that is largely to thank. He is not a showy director here, and is generally content to leave the camera still, to pick a frame and hold it and let the actors do their work. What he does not do is let it feel like a filmed play; there is a filmic quality to the movie, a liveliness and a gravity. When the material isn’t getting in its own way, the direction is quite good, and is some of the best I think we’ve seen from him. I haven’t seen Eat Pray Love, but based solely on this film, I’d be interested in more feature work from Murphy, especially to see him directing other people’s scripts.
Since the film is based on a stage play, the big draw here is the actors, and the strength they bring to talky, showy roles. The casting is impeccable and the performances are uniformly strong. Mark Ruffalo plays Ned Weeks, the firebrand gay author at the center of the play, and he is a phenomenal leading man, simply a powerhouse from beginning to end. Ned is a neurotic, almost self-loathing character, but he is also cocky, overbearing, too quick to anger, and too impulsive to really lead the crusade that he thinks he’s leading. He is an extremely difficult character to like, and Ruffalo doesn’t try to make him likeable. Instead he makes him human.
None of the other actors gets quite so much to do as Ruffalo, but they each shine in one or two showcase scenes. Taylor Kitsch is restrained and barely recognizable as Bruce, the closeted leader of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, while Jim Parsons turns it up to eleven as Tommy, the self-described “Southern bitch”. Both deliver in key emotional scenes, Kitsch especially, when Bruce gets into a fistfight with Ned, then throws a television crew’s camera out the window. Alfred Molina is excellent as Ned’s brother Ben, who nominally wants to be an ally, but who finds it difficult to really understand his gay brother.
Strangely enough the weakest link in the cast is Julia Roberts, though I would be quicker to blame an underwritten character than her acting ability. She is arresting in her scenes, delivering her lines with a fiery passion, but it’s her scenes more than any others that most cross the line into didactic territory. Her confrontation with the funding panel at the National Institutes of Health towards the film’s end is the most egregious example, as she spouts factoids about the AIDS crisis, her volume ever increasing. It’s meant to be emotionally affecting, a crowning moment for a doomed cause, but it comes off instead as preaching, nearly as pandering, and that damages the overall effect of the scene.
The true star of the film, however, is Matt Bomer, as Felix Turner. Nestled in among all of the messaging and the melodrama is a brilliant, real, poignant, and moving love story, and it’s this that makes The Normal Heart truly special. Bomer and Ruffalo have tremendous chemistry, but it’s Bomer especially who sells the tragedy of their relationship. Beyond the physical aspects of watching Felix slowly waste away as he succumbs to the disease, Bomer also fully embodies the mental and emotional toll that AIDS takes on the character. There is an undercurrent of fear, of anger, that runs throughout the film, and in that sense, Ned and Felix are essentially two sides of one coin. It makes sense, then, that the larger political story being told revolves around the small love story between them. It’s a smart if risky structural decision, but thanks to Ruffalo and Bomer, that risk pays dividends. The film would not work at all without them.
Ultimately, The Normal Heart suffers in retrospect because of the progress that has been made with regards to AIDS specifically, and with the gay community in general. In many ways the story it’s telling feels like ancient history; there is an entire subset of the gay community today that has no concept at all of the AIDS crisis, and there is a growing set that has little concept of gay discrimination at all. What was groundbreaking in 1985 is now obvious, and what worked on the stage then doesn’t necessarily play as well on the screen now.
That said, the story is still important, one that deserves to be told. It’s hard not to grow angry when, after we pan out from Ned, alone at Yale’s “Gay Week,” a title card informs us that Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS in 1985, and promised to make it a funding priority, before cutting AIDS funding by 11%; and further, that to date more than 36 million people worldwide have died of HIV/AIDS. Daily, 6,000 people are newly infected. This is a story that needs to be told. It’s a reminder that needs to be made. The Normal Heart wants to be an important film, and while it doesn’t always succeed in that regard, the effort itself is admirable. And even if it does preach too much, even if the education gets in the way of the drama, there is such a strong core in Ned and Felix’s love affair that the scenes that don’t quite work can sort of fall by the wayside. Like most of Murphy’s work, it is best enjoyed in the moment—but what a beautiful moment it is.
The Normal Heart is nominated for 16 awards including Best TV Movie, Best Lead Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie (Mark Ruffalo), and Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie (Matt Bomer).
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Michael Wampler is a graduate of The College of New Jersey, where he completed both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature. He currently lives and works in Princeton, NJ while he shops around his debut novel and slowly picks away at his second. Favorite shows include Weeds, Lost, Hannibal and Mad Men (among many more). When not watching or writing about television, he enjoys reading, going for runs, and building his record collection.