Purely Joyful Movie!

I'll tell you why so serious

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Some thirty years after The Boys In The Band presented a view of gay male life that was before Stonewall, before AIDS, before Anita Bryant. A lot of history and a lot of heartache individually and collectively happened in this time. So Terrence McNally penned a work with another group of eight gay men and put them at a vacation home on a lake in Dutchess County, New York. The three holiday weekends they spend there reveal a lot about themselves.Hosts of the event are John Benjamin Hickey and Stephen Sellars a same sex couple who've been together for 15 years. Like so many in those years they've seen way too many of their friends die and one of those friends invited is Jason Alexander who is HIV+ positive who comes by himself. Alexander is almost a stereotype of a gay man who loves his Broadway musicals. John Glover plays a pair of brothers both from across the pond and one of them has the disease full blown now. One brother is an acid tongued thing with no kind words for anybody. The other has come from Great Britain seeking better treatment for the disease. Mr. Acid tongue has brought dancer/hustler Randy Becker along for some personal enjoyment. But Becker likes what he sees in another guest the blind Justin Kirk brought to the weekends by his partner Stephen Bogardus.It all makes for some interesting theater and a lot is revealed about one and all.Love! Valour! Compassion! ran 248 performances on Broadway in 1995 and won a Tony Award for its author Terrence McNally. It's a lot like a Eugene O'Neill play, short on plot per se, but long and deep on the characterizations. McNally was quite the acute observer of the gay scene, I've seen all of these people one time or other in my life.The film is also like the film adaption of the Eugene O'Neill play Long Day's Journey Into Night where the house itself and the Connecticut beach location almost becomes a character in itself in the film. Here the Quebec woods stand in for the Hudson River Valley country and they stand in well.I don't think you could do much better than a film that's a combination of Boys In The Band and Long Day's Journey Into Night. That is in fact what Love! Valour! Compassion! is.The only thing that puzzles me is how director Joe Mantello handled John Glover playing twins on stage.

Granted this was one of the few gay-themed movies that made it into somewhat mainstream cinema in the 1990s...but at what cost? The film centers around a group of gay friends and tries to be the updated version of "Boys in the Band". Essentially, there is a lot of whining about topics such as ageism, monogamy, HIV and racism...which is actually ironic since the supposed token "minority" character (a Puerto Rican hustler...because, you know...that's what Puerto Ricans do) is actually played by a white guy in his late 20s (but shhhhhhh...you'll never be able to tell the difference). None of the characters has any particular "voice" and all the dialogue seems written by (and for) some pretentious, artsy, east-coast elitist. But don't worry-- to round out all the clichés such as men dancing in drag, there's a lot of gratuitous skin (including Jason Alexander's hairy, flabby buttocks, if that's your thing).

nothing new. and this fact is great. because is a movie about small things. love, friendship, spirit of group, fight against death, a form to survive and give yourself as root, power and beauty for others. a film far by great ambitions. with a wise script and a nice acting. with crumbs of hate, joy, hope, fear and desires. circle of interesting characters and a story with many velvet nuances. after its end - image of Jason Alexander as hero out of courage, fragile, fake but axis of his existence. image of ballet and searches behind it. image of days in which few people lives together far from real world but pieces of it. beautiful and touching. like an old toy of a lost age.

Adapted from a hit play by Terence McNally and utilizing most of the original stage cast, this film cannot hide its theatrical roots... nor should it.This is a sweet and sad story set against a perfect summer at a perfect country estate in upstate New York (?) that shows the lives of 8 gay men as they come to terms with AIDS, death, love, compassion, and the thin bonds of friendship that hold them together.Their summer idyll is a microcosm that, apart from the real world we never see, touches us all because it is their humanity that dominates this story. That one is a dancer, a lawyer, a choreographer, etc. is unimportant. They are 8 gay men whose lives are intertwined in love, valour, and compassion.Jason Alexander is very good in the Nathan Lane role, the portly man dying of AIDS who, late in life finds love. John Glover is brilliant (repeating his Tony-winning role) as twins: one a nasty hateful man; the other a sweet man whose death from AIDS is imminent. Stephen Spinella and John Benjamin Hickey are solid as the yuppie long-term couple. Stephen Bogardus is warm as the stuttering host, Justin Kirk is surprisingly good as the blind man, and Randy Becker is good as the Latino hunk whose causes so much trouble.The film is full of stereotypes and warm humor and terrific moments of truth. This is not a revolutionary film that tries to change the world, but it is a wise and bittersweet look at the lives of gay men in the time of AIDS, men whose lives are shattered (and ended) by a cruel and heartless disease.There's nothing earth-shattering here, no insights that make the lives of gay men clear and understandable to non-gays. But it is a work of great honesty and simplicity in showing 8 gay men as.... human beings.The scene, when the men go skinnydipping under a summer moon is beautiful in its complete innocence. No viewer can fail to understand their childlike glee in such a simple pleasure.This film is a must see just because it is not a strident, political rant against the horrors of AIDS. The characters, especially those played by Glover and Alexander, accept their fates with great dignity, humor, and valour. This film is a great tribute to all our victims of AIDS, and a silent condemnation to the society and politics that let it happen.