Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.5

The Normal Heart Blu-ray Movie Review

Past as Prologue

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 25, 2014

Larry Kramer's autobiographical play, The Normal Heart, has grown in stature since it was first produced at New York's Public Theater in 1985, where it ran for 294 performances (an unusually long engagement for The Public). The events of the play were still fresh at the time, and similar tragedies were continuing all over the city even as the actors recited the grim statistics of the dead and dying on a nightly basis. The HIV virus would not be officially identified until the following year, and the antiviral "cocktails" that would make infection a manageable condition rather than a death sentence were still years away. In its original form, Kramer's work played like a political screed by an agitator whose confrontational style had just gotten him thrown out of the very organization he had been instrumental in founding, Gay Men's Health Crisis (or "GMHC").

By the time The Normal Heart was revived at The Public Theater in 2004, however, and even more so in its first Broadway production in 2011, the play's depth and enduring merit had emerged. Beneath the fury and frustration of the terrible losses inflicted by a disease against which medical science had no defense at the time (and the medical establishment seemed in no hurry to find one), Kramer had captured a fiercely passionate story of the human capacity for love and endurance, even under the worst of circumstances.

No one was better suited to write this story than Kramer, who, long before the AIDS crisis, had been asking challenging questions from within the gay rights movement. An early scene in Ryan Murphy's HBO film adaptation of The Normal Heart shows residents of Fire Island's gay community chiding Kramer's alter ego for his portrayal of their lives in his novel Faggots, where the protagonist questions whether a life of sexual indulgence is emotionally fulfilling (the same question that has been asked for years by many heterosexuals). The rapid emergence of AIDS put an end to the party of sensual gratification that had been seen as an expression of liberation by a community that had spent years in shame and hiding, but as Kramer's play captures in searing detail, the crisis also forced many of these individuals to discover their finer natures. Like war, AIDS made men out of boys, often at the cost of their lives.

Kramer and Murphy have taken full advantage of the film medium to recreate the broad canvas of The Normal Heart that its original audience already knew because it was all around them. The film opens in 1981, as Kramer's fictional alter ego, Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo, whose haunted eyes and expressive features perfectly capture the character's mercurial nature), arrives on Fire Island for a birthday party in honor of a friend, Craig (Jonathan Groff, the voice of Kristoff in Frozen). The visit provides a last glimpse of the sensual celebration that was gay life in New York and in other locales for much of the previous decade. Warning lights are already flashing. The birthday boy collapses on the beach from a dizzy spell. (He will later be an early casualty.) On the ferry back to Manhattan, Ned reads an article in the New York Times about a rare cancer that has suddenly surged among the city's gay men.

Ned's inquiries lead him to Dr. Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), a survivor of childhood polio who practices medicine from a wheelchair and is initially the only doctor in New York who recognizes that a new disease that attacks the immune system is racing through the city's gay male community. In Dr. Brookner, Ned finds a kindred spirit. They are both blunt, unapologetic and unsparing in their assessment of the imminent danger. But when Ned arranges a gathering of acquaintances in his apartment for Dr. Brookner to address, the response is a mixture of anger and derision, because her only advice, given the limited knowledge at the time, is for everyone to stop having sex. As Dr. Brookner departs in a hail of catcalls, Ned rushes after her with the ironic line: "Welcome to gay politics!"

Out of that meeting, however, arises the historic founding of GMHC, which quickly becomes the primary support group to the sick and dying in New York City. The numbers of the afflicted swell quickly, just as Dr. Brookner predicted. Despite his lead role in founding the organization, Ned does not become president. That job is assigned to Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitch, John Carter), a closeted ex-soldier, whose pretty face and pleasant demeanor are deemed better for PR. Another key member is Ned's old friend, Mickey Marcus (the amazing Joe Mantello, who played Ned in the Broadway production), who works for the city writing medical alerts on all manner of subjects and whose job will eventually be threatened by Ned's confrontational style. The role of general office manager falls to Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory), a self-described "Southern gentleman" whose polite exterior hides a steel core.

Much of The Normal Heart is driven by Ned's tireless battling on every front as the AIDS crisis deepens without a commensurate response from public health authorities. He goes on TV and radio, gives print interviews, confronts politicians whenever possible, accuses the Reagan administration of genocide, tries to "out" New York's Mayor Ed Koch (who insisted to the end of his life that he wasn't gay), challenges the board of GMHC to do more, urges every gay man in New York to protest at the top of their lungs, and stops speaking to his brother, Ben (Alfred Molina, An Education), a successful lawyer, because Ben won't accept Ned's sexual orientation. Ruffalo is brilliant at conveying just how aggravating Ned (and Kramer) could be to both his friends and his enemies, without ever letting you forget that what motivated him was a genuine public health crisis that would have received more urgent attention, if it hadn't been initially pigeonholed as a disease that primarily affects gays. ("They just don't like us", says Tommy Boatwright.) Murphy uses the intimacy of closeups to modulate Ned's battles in a way that the stage production never could, so that he doesn't always have to be shouting at the top of his lungs.

The battle becomes personal for Ned through his relationship with Felix Turner (Matt Bomer, White Collar), a reporter for the Times whom Ned meets in an effort to get greater coverage for the story. To Ned's astonishment (which Ruffalo manages to convey even as Ned continues to fulminate at everyone in sight), Ned finds himself, at long last, falling in love, and Murphy uses the backdrop of Manhattan as effectively as Woody Allen might have to convey the exhilaration of the new couple's hope for the future. But when Felix joins the growing roster of HIV victims, he and Ned have to crowd an entire lifetime into a few short months filled with pain and terror. Even then, they are among the lucky ones. The Normal Heart includes several end-of-life stories, all based on real events, where family and friends were denied a proper farewell, because medical facilities, funeral homes, common carriers and many other services shunned victims of the disease like lepers in the Dark Ages.

When The Normal Heart first premiered, its conclusion played as a call to action against a threat that was still only vaguely understood. The ending has subtler shadings today, almost thirty years later. Though AIDS remains a potent (and worldwide) threat, the virus has been isolated, and the disease can be held at bay, though not cured, with drug therapy. Ned Weeks cannot foresee any of this as he sits at his alma mater, Yale University, watching the dancing male couples who have invited him to participate in a Gay Weekend that would have been unimaginable during Ned's student years. In the midst of his anger and grief, he glimpses the future that we know is coming. (The scene is one of many added for the film.)

Still, The Normal Heart never loses sight of what was lost. Perhaps its finest expression occurs in a eulogy delivered by Tommy Boatwright, during which Jim Parsons demonstrates his extraordinary ability to dominate the screen by doing less, letting the words and the situation speak for themselves. As Tommy attempts to give voice to the pent-up anger, fear and frustration of the mourners, he describes his private ritual for dealing with the almost daily news of another death. Tommy's ritual involves a rolodex card, and it supplies director Murphy with a simple but eloquent image to which he will return several times before the film ends, each time with greater impact.

The Normal Heart Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Normal Heart was shot on film by Danny Moder, an experienced camera operator now moving into cinematography. Moder's work was one of the film's eleven Emmy nominations. With post-production on a digital intermediate, HBO's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from the same digital master used for its HD broadcast.

As one would expect from a recently shot production finished digitally, the image is sharp, clean and detailed, without noise or interference. However, because of the origination on film, the video transfer retains an "organic" quality that suits the period in which the drama is set. The color palette has been carefully controlled to match the increasingly bleak direction of the story, shifting from the golden hues of the Fire Island opening, to the colder, more clinical palette of Dr. Brookner's consulting rooms and the various offices where Ned Weeks tries, usually without success, to get people's attention. The blacks in night scenes and in specific settings involving black backgrounds (e.g., a TV broadcast) are solid and dark, and shadow detail is excellent in the various crowd scenes and large office spaces.

Filtering and artificial sharpening are not an issue. Although various manipulations were no doubt performed by the DI colorist, a fine grain pattern from the original film negative remains visible and natural-looking. The disc has been authored with a generous average bitrate of 29.99 Mbps, which allows plenty of bandwidth for the many large crowd scenes, including Craig's birthday party, the boisterous meeting in Ned Weeks's apartment that leads to the formation of GMHC and a fundraising ball that represents one of the organization's most successful events.

The Normal Heart Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Normal Heart's 5.1 sound mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, effectively recreates the varied environments of Eighties New York, from the unique beachfront community of the Pines on Fire Island to the angry anti-gay demonstration that Tommy Boatwright has to traverse to enter GMHC (it's the rare occasion when the Southern gentleman loses his cool for a split second). The rattling of the subway, which was suffering from years of neglect and disrepair, will bring back memories to any straphanger who remembers the era. Carefully selected period tunes grace the soundtrack (e.g., Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me"; Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love"; and The Rolling Stones' "Waiting on a Friend"), and the underscoring by Cliff Martinez (Traffic) complements the emotions of the story without forcing them.

The Normal Heart Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole extra is a brief but informative featurette entitled "How to Start a War" (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:40), which includes interviews with Kramer, Ruffalo, Parsons, Roberts and others. The only major omission is director Ryan Murphy.

The Normal Heart Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As Julia Roberts notes in "How to Start a War", the events of The Normal Heart will seem exaggerated to someone in their twenties, but they are not. A mere thirty years ago, gay people were still considered aberrant by mainstream America, and a significant portion of the population still holds that attitude. (Just look around the internet, and you can find it easily enough.) As long as AIDS was regarded as "the gay plague", it wasn't treated as the public health issue it is now understood to be, but as a rare affliction affecting "them" and just another reason why "they" should be avoided. It took far too long for the responsible authorities to grasp, in the words of Shakespeare's Shylock, that we are all "subject to the same diseases". The Normal Heart provides an essential history of how prejudice prevented an adequate response to a public health crisis, but in Ryan Murphy's fine film adaptation, it also shows how an impossible situation elicited heroism from unlikely sources and prompted many to discover a capacity for love and sacrifice they never knew they had. Highly recommended.