Search

Love! Valour! Compassion!

1997, Movie, R, 115 mins

Love! Valour! Compassion!: Review

LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!
starstarstarstar
Hollywood goes for the gay BIG CHILL thing with this adaptation of Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play. It's all about as white and bourgeois as you can get, but the film does take a few risks, and some actually pay off. Divided into three acts played out over three summer weekends -- Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day -- the film follows the shifting relationships between eight friends who gather at the country house of Gregory (Stephen Bogardus), a celebrated but creatively blocked choreographer, and his sightless, much younger lover, Bobby (Justin Kirk). Among the group are Perry (Stephen Spinella) and his longtime companion Arthur (John Benjamin Hickey); John (John Glover), a bitter English composer, and his current fling, Ramon (Randy Becker); Jack (John Glover, again), John's impossibly gracious, slightly dotty twin brother, who's dying of AIDS; and Buzz (Jason Alexander), an unabashed lover of all things Broadway who's trying to cope with his own HIV-positive status. As good as McNally's screenplay is, it takes some time for things to settle down: For a while there, it looks as though Alexander is going to "play gay" by doing an ill-advised Tallulah Bankhead impersonation, opposite Glover sucking at his queen-sized cigarettes like a pissed-off Bette Davis. None of this is exactly groundbreaking, but it also doesn't shy away from anything -- frank discussions about AIDS, Karposi's sarcoma lesions shown in close-up, full-frontal nudity, actual passion between same-sex partners -- so credit should be given where it's due. leave a comment --Ken Fox
Advertisement

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. NCIS
  2. Dancing with the Stars
  3. The Game
  4. Biggest Loser
  5. American Idol
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Tiger Woods
  2. Pamela Bach
  3. Heidi Klum
  4. Jake Gyllenhaal
  5. Reese Witherspoon
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. The Blind Side
  3. 2012
  4. Old Dogs
  5. A Christmas Carol
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Desperate Housewives
  2. Nip/Tuck
  3. The View
  4. NCIS
  5. TODAY
more top videos