The Normal Heart

Plot synopsis:
It's 1981 and Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo), an openly gay writer, attends the birthday party of his friend Craig Donner (Jonathan Groff) at a beach house in Fire Island. The atmosphere is hedonistic with lots of drinking, dancing and hot hard bodies everywhere. While playing in the surf Craig starts coughing and collapses, but says he's just a little light-headed. Later, when blowing out his candles, Craig appears breathless and keeps coughing.On the bus back to New York, Ned reads an article about a rare form of cancer that's affecting the gay community. He visits Dr Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), who is trying to identify the cause of the disease that's killing her patients. She asks Ned to try and persuade gay men to stop having sex, as she's convinced that's how it's spread. When Ned is preparing to leave, Craig is carried into the office by his boyfriend, Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitch), and their friend Micky Marcus (Joe Mantello). He is convulsing violently and foaming at the mouth. Craig subsequently dies.Ned organises a meeting of the gay community at his home to hear Dr Brookner talk about the disease. She is met with derision from all sides. Nobody takes her seriously and she leaves in frustration. Ned approaches Felix Turner (Matt Bomer), a gay reporter at the New York Times, to enlist his help, but he's unsuccessful. He and a group of friends try fundraising, but no one is interested. Ned asks his lawyer brother, Ben Weeks (Alfred Molina), to provide free legal advice to his friends, to which he reluctantly agrees.Ned visits Dr Brookner at a local hospital and is shocked by the conditions and lack of care her patients are receiving. The staff are scared and won't go near the patients without full protective gear. The patients' food is left outside their door until Dr Brookner can take it to them herself.Ned invites Felix to his apartment for dinner and they end up in bed together.It's 1982 and Ned, Bruce, Mickey, and several other friends including Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons) establish a community organisation called Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC). They select Bruce as their President.As time goes on more friends get sick and die. There are more faces with lesions.Ned asks Felix to move in with him and Felix accepts.Ned keeps writing articles about the AIDS epidemic and during a TV interview he accuses the government of a conspiracy to kill gay men. This doesn't go down well with the other members of GMHC. In another TV interview he accuses the mayor of being gay and is pulled off the air.Ned asks Ben to join the Board of Directors, but he refuses, as he doesn't agree with Ned's lifestyle. They have a blazing argument that culminates in Ned saying he won't speak to Ben again until he accepts him for who he is.Ned invites a NBC film crew to the new GMHC headquarters, which shocks and angers Bruce, who is still in the closet at work. He and Ned exchange blows and Bruce throws the video camera out of the window when the cameraman continues to film him.Ned and Felix go to their beach house for the weekend and, after a discussion about whether they would stay if the other got sick, Felix shows Ned a lesion on the sole of his foot.Ned has dinner with Dr Brookner and she tells him how she contracted polio as a child and was bedridden for much of her childhood. She uses a motorised wheelchair and tells Ned she doesn't practice walking enough, so Ned insists she try. He puts on some music and she stands up out of her wheelchair, gets up on her crutches and they "dance" for a brief moment to Johnny Mathis.The GMHC arrange a meeting with the mayor, who doesn't show up and his substitute, Hiram Keebler (Denis O'Hare), is 90 minutes late. The meeting does not go well, with Ned losing his temper and throwing papers at Hiram.It's 1983 and Tommy receives a call that his friend Nick has died. At the funeral he talks about his Rolodex and how he saves the cards of the friends who have died bound in a rubber band in a drawer. He says he had 5 cards the year before and now he has 50.Felix continues to get sicker. His body is covered in lesions and he looks emaciated. Ned cares for him to the best of his ability.Micky has a meltdown at GMHC headquarters. His job is under threat and he is frustrated by the lack of answers from the medical community, the lack of support from the government, and he fears for the future.Tommy takes a weeping Micky home and Bruce and Ned go to a bar, where Bruce tells Ned that his boyfriend Albert (Finn Wittrock) is dead. He tells Ned that Albert wanted to see his mother in Phoenix before he died. The pilot refused to fly and Bruce refused to leave the plane, so they had to find another pilot who agreed to fly the plane. Albert became confused and disorientated during the flight and died at the hospital shortly after landing in Phoenix. The doctors refused to examine Albert's body and the undertaker wouldn't take the body without a death certificate so, eventually, an orderly put Albert's body in a garbage bag and put him in the alley for a payment of $50. Bruce and Albert's distraught mother put Albert in the back of her car and they found someone to cremate him for $3,000.Felix is now in the hospital and Ned is attempting to remain positive, despite the reality of the situation.Dr Brookner gives a presentation to a group of government officials who refuse her application for funding. She loses her temper and berates them for their inaction while more people continue to die.Ned receives an invitation to the Whitehouse where he meets with John Bruno (Corey Stoll), Advisor to the President. Bruno is only interested in whether heterosexuals can contract AIDS. When Ned says he doesn't have that information Bruno ends the meeting.Ned goes home to Felix where the two argue, culminating in Ned throwing groceries at Felix, then breaking down in tears and burying his head in his lap.Back at GMHC headquarters, Bruce reads Ned a letter from the Board, who are tired of Ned's aggressive approach and have voted him out as a Director. Ned goes to pack up his belongings and gives a very moving speech asking them not to shut him out, but the group turn away from him and leave the room.Felix goes to see Ben to write a will leaving everything to Ned. He collapses on the street outside Ben's office and Ned rushes to be by his side in the hospital. Dr Brookner performs a faux marriage ceremony at Felix's bedside. He dies soon after.The phone rings in Tommy's office and he adds Felix's Rolodex card to the bundle in his drawer.Ned attends the 1984 Gay Week at Yale where gay couples, both male and female, dance together in a candlelit room. Ned weeps silently as he watches them.As the film ends we're told that President Ronald Reagan mentioned AIDS publicly for the first time on 17 September 1985, vowing to make AIDS research a "top priority". However, Reagan's proposed federal budget for 1986 actually called for an 11% reduction in AIDS spending. By the end of 1986 there were 24,559 reported deaths.Since the epidemic began in 1981 over 36 million people worldwide have died from AIDS and more than 6,000 people are newly infected every day with HIV.

Tags: sentimental, flashback

Review:
The Normal Heart is powerful emotional film about the early days of the AIDS crisis.
The film is well-acted particularly by Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Alfred Molina and Julia Roberts.
Heart-rending, gut-wrenching adaptation by Larry Kramer of his own successful play about the foundation and formation in 1982 of the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City in the wake of what was then-called the Gay Cancer (now HIV/AIDS).
Dramatization of events, with Mark Ruffalo's screenwriter Ned Weeks substituting for Kramer, is necessarily a no-holds-barred examination of gay sex in the '80s and its consequences, with the gay community themselves their own worst enemy (by being asked to abstain in the wake of more information on the disease, they felt oppressed as a modern culture and rebelled).
Performances from Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons and the entire cast are superlative..
Also well played was Julia Roberts depiction of Dr. Emma Brookner (Dr. Linda Laubenstein in real life who's unfunded research helped so many), Jim Parsons warm loving portrayal of character Tommy Boatwright who was the heart of the movie and showed the warmth and caring of most gay men I've known, and Taylor Kitsch portrayal of Bruce Niles which showed the reality of Gay men of that era, who feared having their sexual identity out in the public eye with all the negative consequences (harassment, job discrimination, loss of family) of that.This is a story that people definitely need to see, to understand how this disease spread unchecked for so long.
If not for the efforts of men like Ned Weeks and the Gay Activist Alliance's efforts get funding for research when no public official would even acknowledge there was a problem, who know how many more people have died and would be dying today.
The movie was brought alive by amazing actors (especially Matt Bomer<3) I really do hope that this movie is taken seriously and gets more attention due to the fact that more people need to know about AIDs awareness and because discrimination and segregation still happens within the gay community which I find absolutely disgusting.
The Normal Heart is about how the gay community, especially the gay men, were suffering from the AIDS virus as well as the prejudices and ostracism of the public's reaction to the epidemic and who it affected.
Just watched the HBO original movie the "Normal Heart" which is based on a Tony award winning play from real life AIDS activist Larry Kramer, and I must say that director Ryan Murphy took this film to life's edge showing that love and life ends in the tragic and sad deaths of gay men.
Set in New York city during the early to mid 80's at the very early stages of HIV/AIDS in fact the film shows the first deaths and early cases of gay men getting an unknown disease some called even a gay men's cancer plague.
After death after death a newspaper reporter Ned Weeks(in a super performance from Mark Ruffalo)starts to become an activist and fight for the rights of gay men and he faces a big climb from the political and medical community who both seem in denial of gay men's rights and they have no clue on how to treat the disease.
Ned sees the pain and toll that it takes as his lover Felix(Matt Bomer)falls to defeat in the end from this new mysterious killer of gay men.
Lots of lip service from those who had the power to actually help but little action whereas in the Gay community shown in this film...the average person came up to the bat and fought with everything they had to save those they loved.
A scene towards the end of the movie between Mark Ruffalo and Matt Bomer has particularly stayed with me and really pulled at the heart strings.
The entire cast performed stunningly and authentically portrayed the horrors of this time that I appreciate greatly; indeed, this film is not simply about AIDS and the group's fight with the government and with raising awareness within their own community, but addresses multiple problems we have encountered and fought and neglected as well.
I feel a great sense of sadness for all those lost over all of these years, but what is most on my mind is Mark Ruffalo's tour De force performance as Ned Weeks.Although a fictionalized character based on Larry Kramer, Mark made this part his own, while still keeping the aspects of Kramer's real persona.
They were working men of all races and incomes who because of their financial circumstances, lack of insurance etc died quickly and with little notice outside their friends and family, if they were lucky enough to have a family that accepted them (remember this was 1981 not 2014).This film brought back a lot of sadness and regrets for me, I wanted to hug Ned Weeks and tell him that things do get better in the future.
It's not often that a performance affects me, but Ruffalo's did, not because he was playing a fictionalized version of a real person, but because he was playing a little bit of a lot of different men, who at the time thought the promised land had finally arrived for gay men and only to see it turn into a Holocast right before their eyes.I hope that Mark is nominated and wins an Emmy for his performance, because he deserves it..
I was hit by the two well written and well acted monologues of the movie : one is performed by Mark Ruffalo, a gay activist in the movie and the other one by Joe Mantello, an associate of his.
This perfect movie made from a rewritten Larry Kramer script, .is authentic and powerful in showing both the personalities and a community affected in the early days of the AIDS Crisis in New York.
The Normal Heart is a work of fiction bought to life as a TV movie by the same writer who penned the stage version in 1985 Larry Kramer, add to the mix TV director Ryan Murphy of Glee and American Horror Story fame and the two bring forth a film version of the play.Summer of 1981, Ned Weeks is a loud opinionated outspoken New York writer who arrives at Fire Island to celebrate the birthday of his long-time friend Mike's partner Craig.
From the meeting, Ned and a few friends form a Community Group calling themselves Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) where they help other men who are suffering or know of others suffering with a call centre and general adviceThe performances from this TV movie are outstanding, Ned Weeks is a man you loathe due to his arrogance and loud mouth but he is played brilliantly by Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind) Matt Bomer's (White Collar, In Time) transformation has to be seen to be believed as his body slowly deteriorates within the three years the film takes place over.
'The Normal Heart' depicts the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City (among gay people) between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, played by Mark Ruffalo (in a career best performance), the founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group.
I was expecting a movie something like the sad and terrible story and performances displayed in "And the Band Played On", but this film felt a little rushed and stitched together.
The Normal Heart felt well- meaning and earnest and some of the performances were excellent but sometimes the film felt slightly soulless and had the look and feel of a group of actors reciting lines -- or shouting them at the top of their lungs..
Featuring a top-tier cast and great writing, this artfully created film follows the story of Ned Weeks, a man at the forefront of AIDS activism in New York, focusing on the struggle to be taken seriously following the sexual revolution.The cast of The Normal Heart are extremely capable and fill out their roles perfectly; the characters come alive on screen and portray their 3-dimensional, flawed nature as well as the challenges of "gay politics".
The film follows Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) a writer who comes head first with the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980's.
She isn't one of her normal characters and her scenes with Ruffalo are gold.I would add this along with Prayers For Bobby as two films that not only the gay male community but humanity need to see.
Kramer also wrote the screenplay (he was a screenwriter before he was an activist, and he got an Oscar nomination for adapting D H Lawrence's Women in Love for Ken Russell in 1969); Ryan Murphy directed; and Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina and others star.It's essentially an autobiographical account of Kramer's experiences as a vocal and belligerent activist at the beginning of the AIDS crisis in New York in the early 1980s.
Meanwhile as the straight community acts with indifference, all around them friends and loved ones die and more begin to get sick.Kramers main protagonist Ned Weeks (Ruffalo at his finest ever)loosely based on Kramer himself is the voice of sanity in the newly formed Gay Men's Health Crisis, while its first president Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitsch based on real activist Paul Popham) is more concerned about sending out invitations to a fund raiser with the word 'Gay' on them than he is with forcing the inactive major Ed Koch to attend a meeting with their group.
I found his role quite touching.As for the film in general, great performances from many of the cast, excellent script and an emotional true to life story make this film a must see.Fantastic for a TV movie 9/10.Peace & Love xxx.
While this movie reminded me of the miniseries Angels in America and the documentary Sex Positive, it certainly comes out as one of the best films concerning gay topics in a long time (apart from Pride, which is probably one of my favorite pictures about homosexuals ever).
Mark Ruffalo is excellent as Julia Roberts the polo riddled doctor who despite all her effort didn't get any support from the government The dark years of the early 80's when the gay community was left to it's on devices to try and save our dying friends and lovers As the white house scene says since they thoughts AIDS is 'only' killing gays nothing was done-and the main thing of the movie which they didn't elaborate further that the US secretly experimented with viruses that kills gays-one day the truth might come out that this is the real cause and not some silly story about the green monkeys.
I recall at time thinking why is so little being done about this.Mark Ruffalo did an admirable job in the lead role as writer, Ned Weeks and Julia Roberts was incredible as the polio stricken, plain spoken doctor who was so frustrated watching all these men die.
The last film I watch in 2014 is Ryan Murphy's much hyped HBO TV movie, a sob-fest chronicles the life of a gay activist Ned Weeks (Ruffalo) during the inception of HIV epidemic in the 80s.
Prominently, the film is inundated with poignant speeches and melodramatic moments, each of the main cast dominates their spotlight in staunch virtuosity, starting from supporting actors, Bomer as Felix Turner, a Times journalist and Ned's boyfriend, a too- good-to-be-true prince charming for Kramer in real life (he takes the initiative while Ned is clearly oblivious of him after a hookup in the darkness, oh gosh, how can anyone forget someone as yummy as Bomer, even in the pitch black, it is pure baloney!), is utterly heartbreaking to watch in his startling physical transformation as a HIV patient in his last days, likened to Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (2013, 7/10), the weight-loss trick works again, moreover, Bomer hits the perfect note when facing Ruffalo in their intimate time, up to their final wedding scenes, it can easily strikes one's soft spot.
'THE NORMAL HEART': Four Stars (Out of Five)Made for HBO TV movie about a gay writer (and activist) attempting to inform the world about the HIV-AIDS epidemic, during it's onset in the early 1980s.
The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Taylor Kitsch, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Joe Mantello, Jonathan Groff (of 'GLEE' fame), Alfred Molina and Julia Roberts.
During this time the HIV-AIDS disease was becoming a crisis, especially among gay people.
Any compassionate person should be able to sympathize with the gay community, especially at this time, because (like this movie shows) it did seem like they were abandoned by society and left to die off; from a brutal disease that most people (unaffected by it) weren't willing to learn about.
This is the only way they have to let off steam.THE NORMAL HEART is an angry movie; based on a Broadway hit first performed over thirty years ago, it suggest that comparatively little has been done to combat the AIDS virus since it was brought to public attention.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The fact that a gay man, Ryan Murphy, directed The Normal Heart and that the film starred several known gay actors like Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons also added to the reality of what I was seeing.
These people aren't just playing at being gay or being affected by the issues highlighted in the film – these men are living in a world directly affected and shaped by the events taking place in the story and that somehow packed a significantly greater punch.I couldn't watch The Normal Heart in one sitting.
What left me the most destroyed after watching this film was the relationship between Ned and his one true love, Felix Turner – played by the beautiful Matt Bomer.
The Normal Heart is another important film about the AIDS epidemic back in the 1980's just like And The Band Played On.The story provides the drama of the events that transpired during the onset of the HIV virus and AIDS disease particularly in New York City.It takes a look at the nation's sexual politics wherein LGBT community aren't respected and the actions taken by the gay activists in exposing the truth behind the disease which at that time was classified as simply gay-related and the non-action taken by the government as well as the nation's attitude of denial towards it.This is an excellent film as the viewer takes a look on what really happened during that time in history.Also,we get to see the romance between gay couple Ned Weeks and Felix Turner and how the former fought for the truth regarding AIDS and how the latter journeyed towards death because of it.The cast also provided an amazing performance from Mark Ruffalo,Matt Bomer,Julia Roberts,Alfred Molina and many others.Overall,it is one solid film about the early years of AIDS epidemic..
Featuring Julia Roberts as a wheelchair bound doctor fighting to discover what is killing gay men, this also casts many actors, best known for their stage roles, a few who have moved onto the big or small screens, but put their hearts in contributing to this outstanding film version of the controversial play.
Although I do appreciate Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina and Jonathan Groff as great actors but I'm afraid this isn't one of the best works they acted in.I'm really dissapointed that I didn't find this enjoyable to watch, I am really interested in what history taught us and the fact how aids back then, wasn't treatable as it is now.
The story of the onset of the AIDS/HIV epidemic, as seen through the eyes of a group of gay men in New York.