Perfectly cast and well acted film of a stagey stage-play. It's been opened out a little here and there, but since its claustrophobia is part of its power, I don't know that letting us out of the New York apartment in which it takes place is particularly helpful.
The play has historical significance, in that author Mart Crowley aimed at and succeeded in capturing the self-loathing of a then despised part of the American population. It was particularly galling that the gay community of New York City was treated with contempt at the time, given the central role it played in much for which the city was admired and famous for throughout the world. Within a year of the first production, the worm turned at the Stonewall Inn. The Boys in the Band is what life was like in New York before Out and Proud became an option. Twenty years later, the wider population, led by the American government, turned its collective back on gay people to devastating effect, casting the community adrift to face the AIDS crisis. That period's chronicler was Larry Kramer. who died just a couple of months after Mart Crowley in this year of pandemic, 2020.
So much for the historical gap. That between Crowley and Kramer as writers is largely one of dramatic self-restraint. Kramer had no talent for it, whereas Crowley seems trapped by it. THE NORMAL HEART is a prolonged howl of pain and anger, while THE BOYS IN THE BAND, its one moment of violence aside, is dedicated to sharp stiletto stabs. So many, that the overall trauma endured by this group of birthday party guests is submerged by slow-death melodrama.
The playscript, then, its truths notwithstanding, is creaky. That was just as true when the film with the original, off-Broadway cast was made in 1970 as it is here, with its 50th anniversary revival cast. What we do get, because all these actors know these roles inside out, is a detail and depth in performance that most Hollywood films never achieve, because film actors get so little chance to rehearse. But look here at Matt Bomer, in the under-written part of Donald, listening to everything being said with the attention of someone who is really in the room. Same with Michael Benjamin Washington, who is nuanced and truthful in another of the less flashy roles. Which is not to undersell those whose lines do flash: Jim Parsons, Robin de Jesús, and Zachary Quinto are all excellent, as are Andrew Rannells, Tuc Watkins, Brian Hutchison and Charlie Carver. Joe Mantello, no mean actor himself, directs what was undoubtedly a first-rate theatre production, but as a film it primarily has historical value, just as had producer Ryan Murphy's parallel project of THE NORMAL HEART. Historical, but not irrelevant.
I write this when to be gay in certain countries in the world carries the risk of a death sentence. In Poland, the rights of gay people are increasingly curtailed as the government finds it useful to find scapegoats. As is the case in Russia, too. I write this before the Supreme Court in the USA is likely to face a new direction. The battles may well have to start anew, and yesterday's historical document may need to become tomorrow's manifesto.
