angels in america

early april, 2005

I LOVED this. I grant it five stars. We rented it from Netflix, and it took forever for us to watch it because I expected it to be depressing, given the subject matter – the early days of AIDS in New York City. We got it sooner than we meant to – it managed to climb to the top of the queue, and I didn’t notice until we received it. Then we kept not watching it, thinking it was going to be really grim and sad.

I’d heard really good things about it for quite some time. It’s more of a miniseries than a movie. It’s in six parts, two discs. It’s adapted from a play by Tony Kushner that caused quite the stir in Charlotte a few years ago, and if I’m not mistaken resulted in some funding from the NEA being jerked away. Supposedly due to nudity, although since there were about five minutes of nudity in the entire six hours, I’m inclined to think the theme was the real problem for conservative and religious Charlotte. The story revolves mostly around Pryor, who has just found he has AIDS, as well as his neurotic Jewish boyfriend who can’t handle it. There are also several overlapping stories – a Mormon and his unhappy wife, and a very very rich and politically important, far-right-wing homophobic older man who has also been diagnosed with AIDS. Throw in a bunch of bizarre visions and a deranged angel who keeps making frightening visits to Pryor – who has decided he’s a profit – and the Mormon’s realization of what’s really wrong with his marriage, and the unhappy wife who goes off on a surreal imaginary hallucinatory trip to the Antarctic with a otherworldly travel agent who keeps appearing and disappearing, AND the Mormon’s mother showing up to save him, and Pryor’s best friend who is a cynical and flamboyant nurse and finds himself having to take care of the old sick rich homophobic guy…it’s REALLY complicated.

And it stars Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep, Al Pachino, and Mary-Louise Parker, along with the other actors I’d never heard of who were all fantastic. AND, most surprisingly, it was astoundingly funny. Of all things. Funny was the last thing I was expecting. And even more astounding, it was NOT depressing at ALL. I’d watch it again right now.