The Normal Heart plays it safe with an ’80s AIDS landmark

HBO’s new movie The Normal Heart is based on a quasi-autobiographical play by Larry Kramer about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York. The most breathtaking achievement of that play is its timing—it was produced in 1985 and covered the first half of the decade, before doctors had much idea what they were dealing with. That immediacy charges every scene. AIDS stories are never set that early. Angels In America and Dallas Buyers Club open in 1985. ACT UP, the activist organization founded by Kramer that is at the center of 2012 documentary How To Survive A Plague, was formed in 1987. Rent starts in 1989. But The Normal Heart goes from the first reporting on “gay cancer” and ends before President Reagan ever even acknowledged the plague. Of all these looks at the early days of the AIDS epidemic, The Normal Heart stands on the front lines, screaming at the top of its lungs that people are dying. Unfortunately, powerful as the play is, Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of it makes for a cinematic tearjerker that’s more relentless than it is masterful.
HBO’s adaptation of The Normal Heart opens at a Fire Island shindig in 1981. Craig (played here by Jonathan Groff) welcomes protagonist Ned (Mark Ruffalo), introduces his boyfriend Bruce (Taylor Kitsch), and at one point loses consciousness for a second on the beach. Ned, a writer and self-proclaimed asshole based on Kramer, had been warning the gay community against the psychological dangers of promiscuity but soon learns about the physical dangers as well: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” reads the New York Times’ first mention of the disease. Craig dies almost as soon as he’s diagnosed, and Ned and Bruce begin an organization, Gay National Health Crisis, to make some noise about the disease—Bruce playing good cop to Ned’s bad. Also involved are Craig’s doctor, Emma (Julia Roberts), a closeted Times style writer named Felix (Matt Bomer), and a self-reported Southern bitch (whose performance begs to differ) named Tommy (Jim Parsons).