Angels
In America is such a rich tapestry of words, ideas and images, that, despite it’s
somewhat demographically pointed subject matter, offers a little something for
everybody. Adapted from Tony Kushner’s 1993 play about gays, AIDS and homophobia
in the Reagan era, director Mike Nichols has constructed a slightly flawed, but
soaringly poetic epic that is not only politically stirring and deliciously American,
but damned entertaining as well. And with a cast that includes some of our finest
thespians (Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Al Pacino) you really can’t go
wrong in recommending this film to almost any English speaking adult.
Before
I proceed I’d like to quickly point out that many of the writers at zboneman.com
live in Utah and are either Mormon, jack-Mormon or married to a Mormon - and I
can’t overstate what a pleasure it was to have Meryl Streep portray a stuffy,
long-suffering Mormon mother. Three of the film’s chief characters are Latter
Days and they are all fascinatingly real and non-stereotypically drawn. That in
itself is something of a miracle for us. What a revelation it was to have the
finest actress alive play this mother - struggling with her ambiguous reaction
to her gay son, as well as her own conflicted identity - and then to have her
deeply-closeted lesbian proclivity brought out and smashed to ruins by a mid-air
soul-kiss from a violent angel of God . . . well, it’s just not something
you see . . . ever, actually.
Angels
In America revolves around a gay couple played by stage actors Ben Shenkman and
Justin Kirk. When it is revealed that Kirk has contracted AIDS the fabric of their
world is torn and laid bare which sets into motion a dizzying chain-reaction of
events. Soon to become interconnected with this storyline is the other chief couple
of the film played by Patrick Wilson and Mary Louise Parker. Trapped in a doomed
marriage, these displaced Mormons live in a fragile world where Parker’s
depression and Valium-abuse gives Wilson an excuse to avoid any physical intimacy
which is, in truth, born of his latent homosexuality. Their scenes are harrowingly
honest, and their symptoms open metaphor for any number of marital problems. Parker
is at her heartbreaking best here as a needy, neglected wife who falls into delusional
fantasy as her clinical depression and self medication collide. Her need for brutal
honesty in the face of her husbands vague evasiveness result in some of the most
unflinchingly well written scenes of marital confrontation in recent memory. And
hearken back to another play that Nichols adapted lo these many years ago - Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
Wilson
plays a lawyer/clerk who ghost-writes seminal legal decisions that are ironically
anti-homosexual and is being groomed by Al Pacino who plays the infamous attorney
Roy Cohn. Cohn for those unaware was the political crony to such political lightning
rods as J Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon and is the kind of ruthless
barrister that created such a need for lawyer jokes. Cohn is also secretly gay
and when he is hospitalized with AIDS it brings back the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg
(one of three characters played by Streep). Cohn was instrumental in the prosecution
and subsequent execution of the alleged communist-operatives, the Rosenbergs,
and Ethel has now returned to sit a death-bedside vigil to the man who she hates
with a pure and stoic passion. There is a scene between the two just before Cohn
dies that is absolutely gut-wrenching.
Pacino
may have done better work in his career, but to watch this chilling, yet sympathetic
performance as the decaying beast on display, it’s hard imagine one as all-encompassing.
Reprising his Tony Award winning role as Belize, Cohn’s nurse, is the terrific
Jeffrey Wright. Belize is a complex role, a gay man whose job it is to care for
this seemingly inhuman monster - ironically stricken with this “gay man’s”
disease. Wright finds the perfect balance or humor, empathy and open distaste
and his verbal sparring with Pacino is pure art.
To
go into every way that these lives begin to interconnect is too Herculean a task
for any one writer to tackle, and is quite unnecessary. While I’m on the
subject of unnecessary, it didn’t seem that both Emma Thompson and Meryl
Streep needed to play three roles apiece. In the stage production this probably
made more sense, but in the film version this trifecta was more distracting than
anything else. Also somewhat disconcerting were the lackluster special effects.
I suppose it may have been intentional, but the sequences where the Angel (played
by Thompson) ripped through ceilings were surprisingly cheesy (you could practically
see the rigging). Again this may have been intentional, but these scenes required
plenty of suspension of disbelief and would have been better served had they been
more seamless.
I’ve
heard critics grumble a bit about the lengthy and florid soliloquies that certain
characters would utter, but I actually enjoyed this aspect of the script. The
film isn’t grounded in realism by any means and thus I found the inclusion
of these almost Shakespearean lapses into poetic prose fitting and the imagery
they contain is quite arresting. It was clearly Nichols’ desire to stay as
faithful to the play as possible and with a few exceptions this served his film
effectively. With a dozen terrific acting performances and a script that is daring,
candid and poetic, Angels In America is one of the tastiest treats awaiting you
on your video store shelf.
