The first
mainstream Hollywood film to deal with the subject of AIDS, and one of the few
to feature gay characters in a serious dramatic context, Philadelphia is highly
competent and equally--if surprisingly—conventional.
Handsome, self-assured young corporate lawyer Andrew Beckett
(Tom Hanks) is fired by his white-shoe Philadelphia firm when his sleek,
self-satisfied employers--including Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards) and Bob
Seidman (Ron Vawter)--discover that he's HIV positive. With the support of his
family--especially his mother, Sarah (Joanne Woodward)--and his lover, Miguel
(Antonio Banderas), Beckett sues. But the only lawyer who will take his case is
local ambulance chaser Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), who's not sure he wants
to be associated with a high profile case about homosexual prejudice.
Philadelphia fails to create
complex characters or finely nuanced drama, but it succeeds in its real goal;
the education of an audience whose thinking about AIDS and gay life has been
shaped by notions of perversion and divine retribution. Screenwriter Ron
Nyswaner and director Jonathan Demme assemble a drama filled with familiar
elements: the importance of family (and, especially, a mother's love for her
children); the decent little man pitted against a smugly uncaring system; the
mismatched legal team of affluent white suburbanite Beckett and struggling, black,
city-bred Miller. Strong performances from Hanks and Washington are among the
film's greatest assets. Doomsayers foretold that the movie would fail to find a
mainstream audience and that this would insure the subject's relegation, once
again, to the independent arena, but the dire predictions proved false.
Being
the film buff that I am, I am very critical of this movie. It was good, but it
wasn’t great.
I
give Philadelphia 3 out of 5 stars.
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