The Normal Heart

The entire cast of The Normal Heart is outstanding, but no one stands out more than Bomer, who is so much the handsome star of USA's "White Collar," in the beginning, then almost unrecognizable as the dying Felix.

It is a moment of fury and grace and wonder that this Heart, in which a brutally specific story is deftly re-tailored for another medium and time, loses none of its original passion or pointedness.

Teeming with anger, sorrow, passion and purpose, this powerful and harrowing movie is part tragic love story in plague times, part agitprop manifesto and tribute to tireless activism.

Ned and just about everyone else erupts in violent arguments, denunciations, accusations, counteraccusations, diatribes--these are searing, electrifying moments, furiously articulate and delivered with escalating passion. [2 Jun 2014, p.45]

What [director Ryan Murphy] delivers is a film with piercing emotional honesty that feels rough, and real, and intimate, and truly full of heart.

It is emotionally raw, harrowing, and a thing of such singular horrific beauty, it will move you, exhaust you and, almost paradoxically, thrill you at the heights television drama can attain.

It’s also an intimately personal tale of Kramer’s heartbreaking first-hand experience with the disease. Directed by Ryan Murphy, it’s bound to put Emmys in the hands of a remarkable cast.

The Normal Heart grows in poignancy as characters we’ve come to know are affected or afflicted by AIDS.

The cast succeeds, and in the end, so does Heart.

Like Behind the Candelabra, its action isn’t measured in car chases and explosions. It’s charted in the lives it touches.

In a film directed by Ryan Murphy and with strong performances, including those by Mr. Ruffalo, Ms. Roberts, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons and Alfred Molina, Mr. Mantello's anguished lament ["...can't you see how important it is for us to love openly...without guilt?"] may be the most haunting.

The story of the plague has been told before, and it will and should continue to find new life. But The Normal Heart tells it with admirable honesty and plenty of emotion.

Murphy directs with straightforwardness and sincerity and none of the camp fireworks of Glee or American Horror Story.

Though the supporting cast members are all good (Parsons particularly so) it's Kramer's fury, channeled through Ruffalo's manic energy as the writer's alter-ego Ned Weeks, that keeps The Normal Heart beating and preserves a horrific bit of all too recent history not in amber, but in anger.

The Normal Heart sets up a bit of a “this happened, then this happened” rhythm that does not bode well. But just as quickly, the film gets this historical crutch out of its system and begins to explore in greater depth the characters and their relationships.

While a miniseries might have truly been something to behold--allowing the slow helplessness to really penetrate viewers, there’s something to be said about making a big, loud noise and getting the message out--again. In that sense, both Murphy and Kramer do the play justice (as you would expect) and have created a powerful modern history reminder for those too young to understand the all-too-recent past.

The translation from stage to screen also yields speeches that probably played better live, although the director has for the most part opened up the Tony-winning material into movie form. In its totality, this represents a powerful piece of work.

HBO's The Normal Heart is a boldly corporeal expression of gay political consciousness.

It’s a first draft told by a first responder, with no time for niceties. But it is deepened and rounded out by some remarkable supporting performances, especially a fantastic Jim Parsons as Tommy, a warmhearted activist volunteer.

Murphy is a fascinating dichotomy in that he works expertly with actors and actresses (even in a mess like "Eat Pray Love" and undeniably in every season of "AHS") and so the performances he draws from his inevitably-Emmy-winning cast play tug-of-war with his melodramatic leanings and, ultimately, win the fight enough to allow his film to resonate.

The movie, adapted by Mr. Kramer and directed by Ryan Murphy, simultaneously exposes some of the play’s flaws and finds alternate sources of power in the story.

Serve up enough great moments (and The Normal Heart certainly does), and Ryan's occasional missteps are easily dismissed as mere annoyances, not major gaffes.

This reincarnation of The Normal Heart raises all the right disturbing questions.

Ultimately, the good in Normal Heart outweighs the bad, which isn't always the case with Murphy's work. It's an important story packed with vivid individual moments, but with this material and these actors, it feels like it could be so much more than what it is.

Morally and historically significant, emotionally wrenching and politically terrifying, The Normal Heart is more important than artful, and that’s just fine.

What Mantello projects, and the movie lacks, is a kind of raw, exposed-nerve drive. As a play, The Normal Heart was political theater: It strong-armed you, but it worked. The movie emphasizes the love story to the point where it borders on romantic fantasy.

Buoyed by A-list star power, The Normal Heart beats erratically for more than two hours, yet delivers a gut punch in its climax.

Everything that’s excellent about The Normal Heart--including compelling performances from its stars, Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts, with an especially strong turn from "White Collar’s" Matt Bomer--is also merely just fine; very good but not great; a tear-jerker but not a bawler; and probably beyond reproach.

Characters make long, passionate speeches that sometimes fail to register because they feel like lectures--though maybe Kramer’s message shouldn’t be so easy to hear.

Overscored and overwrought, The Normal Heart is a tough pill to swallow. The direction of Ryan Murphy (Glee) is piercingly staccato (and visually inconsistent). The tender moments don't resonate, and the fraught moments feel hysterical.

The film just about rises above its many flaws, thanks to a some committed and affecting performances from seasoned actors like Mark Ruffalo, Joe Mantello and a surprisingly effective Julia Roberts.