Three decades after it was written, “The Normal Heart” has been turned into an HBO film, and its stars say the play still beats loudly with a message of outrage, sadness, tenacity and, in the end, hope.
The adaptation of Larry Kramer’s 1985 play (Sunday, 7 p.m. MST) chronicles the terror of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York in the early 1980s and the resolve shown by a group of gay men who fought ignorance, panic, prejudice – and sometimes each other – to raise awareness and spur treatment of a disease that eventually would claim millions of lives.
The story of that struggle remains important today, especially for younger people who may not be familiar with the era, says Julia Roberts, who plays Emma Brookner, a doctor and activist who treated and advocated for patients.
“It can keep reminding people that it wasn’t so very long ago, and we were not there for each other in a way that is really shocking,” she says. “To forget is to make the same mistake again. ... It’s great to remind people, to say, ‘Yes, this is what happened, so let’s be mindful of each other and be loving and compassionate.’”
In the film, the AIDS toll is underlined when activist Tommy Boatwright (Jim Parsons) catalogs the deaths by removing cards from a Rolodex file and adding them to an ever-expanding stack in his desk drawer.
“When you see something as simple as a Rolodex card being taken out because the person is no longer with us, it says more than the grandest gesture ever could,” Parsons says. “You don’t have to be gay, and you don’t necessarily have to have known anybody who’s gotten sick to understand the depth of what’s being told here and the heartbreak of it.”
Amid the horror, however, “Heart” also depicts the indomitable spirit of the men, from the irrepressible catalyst (and Kramer alter ego) Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) to the closeted and more diplomatic Bruce Niles (Taylor Kitsch), and those who supported them, including reporter (and Ned’s eventual lover) Felix Turner (Matt Bomer).
Under Ryan Murphy’s direction and Kramer’s adapted screenplay, Heart evolved from the piece of political “agitprop that it had to be ... to shake people out of their stupor” in 1985 to an expanded look at human nature, Ruffalo says.
In the end, “what was so surprising was how much about love this actual story ended up being. It was love in every different manifestation: brotherly love, sexual love, love of comrades in arms, the love of a culture, tough love, the love of honesty,” he says. “It went from a movie about AIDS to a movie about love and human experience.”
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