Even aside from the homosexual anxiety this question evinces, it points to the many social and political ways that men are evaluated and judged, and parallels Henry, Tony, and Alex's concerns that their very different understandings of responsibility and self-identity might match up, or at least complement one another. Remarkably, the film poses such questions without making its men into either heroic or melodramatic figures. They remain complicated and imperfect, even as they come to their inevitable reconciliation. The end has its soapy aspects, but is moving as well, in large part because Hill delivers such a consistently restrained performance. By the time Alex's lack of comprehension begins to dissolve into acceptance, of himself and others, the film has already done its work.
Understanding is relative, in more ways than one.
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