"Miguel, I'm ready."
I think because it was the first big-budget, mainstream studio movie to directly tackle HIV/AIDS, people sometimes talk about it like it’s a clinical, safe piece of Oscar bait. But man, Jonathan Demme does not make safe movies. The way he uses his signature close-ups, forcing you to look straight into the eyes of Andrew Beckett as he deals with the physical toll of the disease, and then straight into the eyes of Joe Miller as he wrestles with his own deep-seated and ugly homophobia is intensely intimate. It forces a level of empathy that a colder, more detached director never could have pulled off.
Tom Hanks deserved every bit of that Oscar.
The physical transformation is staggering, but it’s the quiet moments that break you. That aria scene with Maria Callas playing in the background, where the room turns entirely red and he's just drifting away into the music while holding onto his IV pole... it’s easily one of the most beautiful, devastating sequences in 90s cinema.
And Denzel? Denzel is the secret weapon here. He has the incredibly difficult job of playing a character who starts off deeply unlikable and bigoted, but he plays Joe Miller with this raw, messy humanity. You watch his perspective shift not through some grand, preachy speech, but through small, quiet realizations like watching him notice the lesions on Andrew's face at the library and realizing, this is just a human being who is hurting. It’s an angry movie, it’s a deeply sorrowful movie, and yet it feels profoundly full of love.
Also, that Bruce Springsteen track over the opening credits instantly sets a mood that hangs over the entire two hours. A masterclass.
"Miguel, I'm ready."
I think because it was the first big-budget, mainstream studio movie to directly tackle HIV/AIDS, people sometimes talk about it like it’s a clinical, safe piece of Oscar bait. But man, Jonathan Demme does not make safe movies. The way he uses his signature close-ups, forcing you to look straight into the eyes of Andrew Beckett as he deals with the physical toll of the disease, and then straight into the eyes of Joe Miller as he wrestles with his own deep-seated and ugly homophobia is intensely intimate. It forces a level of empathy that a colder, more detached director never could have pulled off.
Tom Hanks deserved every bit of that Oscar.
The physical transformation is staggering, but it’s the quiet moments that break you. That aria scene with Maria Callas playing in the background, where the room turns entirely red and he's just drifting away into the music while holding onto his IV pole... it’s easily one of the most beautiful, devastating sequences in 90s cinema.
And Denzel? Denzel is the secret weapon here. He has the incredibly difficult job of playing a character who starts off deeply unlikable and bigoted, but he plays Joe Miller with this raw, messy humanity. You watch his perspective shift not through some grand, preachy speech, but through small, quiet realizations like watching him notice the lesions on Andrew's face at the library and realizing, this is just a human being who is hurting. It’s an angry movie, it’s a deeply sorrowful movie, and yet it feels profoundly full of love.
Also, that Bruce Springsteen track over the opening credits instantly sets a mood that hangs over the entire two hours. A masterclass.
