Angels in America

This is not entertainment. I mean, it is, but it shouldn't be viewed that way. In the same vein, it shouldn't be viewed as educational. I mean, it is, in that it does educate, but its intent is not to preach. What it really is is dramatic poetry, a Shakespearean play for our times. You certainly notice when monologue-itis creeps into some films, but not in this one, and I think that's because the monologues are breathtakingly true, honest, and eloquent. And they don't go on for longer than they should. This is, one could argue, yet another story about AIDS in the 80s in conservative America. But with screenwriting this intense (and I wish I could have seen how audiences reacted to the original play), it never meant to be included in the AIDs-film genre. As happens in plays, but almost never on screen, several of the actors play more than one part, chief among them Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, and Emma Thompson. They and the other actors do the screenplay justice, hitting all the right notes at the right moments. I'll admit the angel was slightly off-putting initially (I'd imagined it in my mind differently), but that had to be the hardest role of them all, playing a non-human but imbuing it with human qualities without making a joke out of it. By far my favorite scene is that of heaven, which was filmed at Villa Adriana outside of Rome, a supremely beautiful and enigmatic ruin, one of my favorite places in the Rome vicinity. So I guess I get to say that I've been to heaven. Can't be flippant at the end of this review, though. I recommend this film to anyone, in particular those who are interested in all sides of the AIDS story, for it does every side justice.

year: 2003
length: 352 min. (6-part mini-series)
rating: 4.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318997/combined