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Grade • A
DVD •The Normal Heart" is a stunning play-turned-stunning TV movie that's about the early days of the AIDS crisis — and yet it's so much more.
Directed and produced by Ryan Murphy ("Glee," "American Horror Story"), "The Normal Heart" is Larry Kramer's adaptation of his autobiographical, Tony-winning play.
Mark Ruffalo stars as Ned Weeks, a gay man at the center of the narrative. He becomes increasingly confrontational as it becomes clear something terrible is happening and it's being ignored. Kramer's narrative spares no one — not New York Mayor Ed Koch, not President Ronald Reagan, not the gay activists who scoff at the idea they should curb their sex lives.
It's a history that is already being forgotten in the gay and straight communities and needs to be remembered. Whether it's a dying man worrying about the fate of his dog or a man losing the love of his life to a disease that no one at the time understands, "The Normal Heart" will tear at your heart. —
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