Tag Archives: Mark Ruffalo

May 23

“The Normal Heart”: New Adaptation of Larry Kramer’s Play

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If you have access to HBO, most advance reviews indicate it’s well worth checking out Sunday night’s premiere of The Normal Heart. David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, says, in fact, there are “millions” of reasons to tune in, including, “because ‘The Normal Heart’ seethes with rage, truth and love in every single performance by an A-list cast. You should watch because Larry Kramer’s play is so much more than an agitprop relic from the early years of AIDS — it is a great play that has become an even greater television film.”

There are those who disagree, however, that the TV adaptation is better than the play. David Hinckley, New York Daily News, for example:

…’The Normal Heart’ is most effective in a good stage production, because it seethes with a visceral anger best felt in the physical presence of the actors.
But this new Ryan Murphy adaptation comes close, thanks in large measure to the fury that Mark Ruffalo gives to lead character Ned Weeks…
Weeks becomes the voice of outrage, demanding friends and foes alike acknowledge the urgency of this plague.

Below Wiegand sets up the TV film’s plot, which is based on Kramer’s real-life experiences in the early 1980’s. He also introduces the main characters played by, in order of their characters’ mentions, Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, and Matt Bomer:

Ned Weeks…is an abrasive activist-slash-writer who tries to rally gay men toward awareness of the growing health crisis and lobbies in vain for the New York Times to give the issue appropriate coverage.
Soon enough, the situation is impossible for gay men to ignore, although the straight world would do its damnedest for several years. When Ned urges sexual abstinence as a way of stopping the spread of the so-called ‘gay cancer,’ he may as well be advocating a mass return to the closet by the entire gay population of New York.
He finds a powerful ally in Dr. Emma Brookner…whose childhood battle with polio has left her in a wheelchair as an adult but has also taught her that health crises demand urgent and focused response.
As Weeks steps up pressure on the Times, he meets a lifestyle writer for the paper named Felix Turner…who becomes his lover.

Critics have praised the cast as a whole, with frequent special mentions of Bomer’s performance. Other cast members include Jonathan Groff, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina, Denis O’Hare, and Joe Mantello.

You can watch the trailer below:

SELECTED REVIEWS

David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle:

[Murphy’s] film, with an adaptation by Kramer, captures the conflicting attitudes and emotions in the New York gay community as indifference and denial turned to panic, anger and despair, but it also recognizes that ‘The Normal Heart’ tells a human story far beyond both its subject matter and the time in which it is set…

It is emotionally raw, harrowing, and a thing of such singular horrific beauty, it will move you, exhaust you and, almost paradoxically, thrill you at the heights television drama can attain.

Brian Tallerico, rogerebert.com: “Expect tears before the end of the first half-hour. Expect anger. Expect to be emotionally exhausted.”

Chuck Barney, Mercury News: “What [Murphy] delivers is a film with piercing emotional honesty that feels rough and real, intimate and truly full of heart.”

David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun: “…will keep you up for hours in an emotional churn thinking about life, love, loss, death and politics.”

Peter Knegt, Indiewire: “…(I)t’s messy and disjointed, never confident in its tone and failing to live up to its epic potential. Hopefully if Kramer and Murphy…team up for a sequel, they find a way to make it up to us (maybe by hiring someone else to direct it?).”

Sep 27

“Thanks for Sharing”: Dramedy About Sex Addiction Recovery

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About the new film Thanks for Sharing, from sex addiction expert Robert Weiss, LCSW, founder of The Sexual Recovery Institute (on The Huffington Post):

Thanks for Sharing is a meaningful and important film in three key ways. First, it is a well-written, well-acted, entertaining movie. Second, it is an accurate portrayal of the trials, tribulations, and joys of sex addiction recovery. Third, it is a film that can and hopefully will educate both active sex addicts and the general public about the nature (and recovery path) of a heretofore mostly misunderstood disease. Perhaps the most telling thought in this regard comes from an associate of mine — a recovering sex addict with more than a decade of sobriety. He saw the movie with a non-addicted friend who has long questioned the existence of sex addiction, despite knowledge of my associate’s troublesome sexual history. After the movie the non-addict friend said two things:

  1. I think I finally get it. Sex really can be an addiction.
  2. Is there a 12-step program for non-addicts? Because if there is, I’d really like to go.

In Thanks for Sharing the three main characters—Adam (Mark Ruffalo), Mike (Tim Robbins), and Neil (Josh Gad)—are in three different phases of participation in Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA). Five years into recovery, Adam has Mike as a sponsor, a guy who’s quick with an SAA aphorism but has conflicted relationships with his wife (Joely Richardson) and son Danny (Patrick Fugit), whose own addiction has been drugs. Adam sponsors the resistant, legally mandated Neil.

It is in fact much more common for men to attend SAA than women, so the fact that there’s only one female group member rings true. Like Neil, Dede (Alecia Moore) is a relative newcomer to SAA. And, by the way, Moore is otherwise known as the singer Pink, and she’s received positive reviews for her role.

Each addict has his/her struggles, but critics seem to focus the most on the emerging romantic relationship between Adam and Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow), who’s already had a bad experience with an addict, an alcoholic partner. Adam thus fails initially to admit his addiction, a dishonest and unhealthy way for a member of SAA to go.

In addition to Adam and Phoebe, another interpersonal thread is the friendship that emerges between Neil and Dede, who’s previously only been able to relate to men via sex. The opinion of Linda Holmes, NPR, echoes that of several other reviewers as well:

…I think the most pleasant surprise is the friendship between the characters played by Josh Gad and Pink. This is the story that underscores the importance of giving a rip about someone besides yourself if you’re ever going to recover from anything. At first, the Gad character is so sketchy…that it seems like he might be irredeemable, but there’s a lot of ground to cover — as there is for all these characters.

What Are Some of the Things We Learn About Sex Addiction?

It’s a real condition for many, not an excuse for inappropriate behavior.

In the film the guys call recovery the daily struggle to “quit [the proverbial] crack while the pipe’s attached to your body.”

Robert Weiss, The Huffington Post, reports that two key sexual recovery books are seen in the film, Patrick Carnes‘s Out of the Shadows and A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps.

Although generally giving a favorable critique, Weiss adds:

My sole gripe, and it’s a very small gripe, is that the concept of ‘sexual sobriety’ is not adequately explained. I worry that viewers potentially interested in sexual recovery for themselves will walk away thinking that being sexually sober means they can never have sex again, with themselves or anyone else. And in reality that is not the case. Sexual sobriety differs for every person, and it does not equate to an elimination of sexuality. Instead, sexual sobriety is about finding ways to be sexual that are life and relationship affirming. Yes, compulsive and problematic sexual behaviors must be eliminated, but the remainder of the wide-open sexual universe remains in play. Sexual recovery is not a death-knell for sex, just as recovery from compulsive eating does not involve starving oneself to death.

Andrew Schenker, Slant: “The film shrewdly expands its scope by linking sex addiction with other forms of addiction, understanding the addictive personality to be not easily compartmentalized into a single category. Thus Mike is also an alcoholic, Neil a compulsive eater, and Dede is simultaneously attending a meeting for drug addicts.”

May 11

“The Kids Are All Right”: And the Moms Are Lesbians

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The true experiences of Zach Wahls (see yesterday’s post) may be reminiscent to some of the recent dramedy directed by Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right (2010). It stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple, Nic and Jules, who have two teenagers who were conceived with the aid of an anonymous sperm donor.

Like many parents—of any sexual orientation—Nic and Jules do not have a perfect relationship. And it really teeters on the edge when they actually meet the sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), who’s been found by the kids.

The trailer for The Kids Are All Right includes snippets of interviews with the cast about this unique story:

Selected Reviews

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: “Cholodenko and cowriter Stuart Blumberg have crafted a loving work about family that will resonate as true for those who find their experience reflected on the big screen and will be revelatory to others.”

A.O. Scott, New York Times: “The performances are all close to perfect, which is to say that the imperfections of each character are precisely measured and honestly presented.”

Dr. Ellen Weber Libby, psychologist: “…captures, with respect and sensitivity, the hard work required to keep marriages alive, to raise children, and for both children and adults to meet life’s challenges.”

Don’t let this element escape you: the kids in this family have in fact turned out all right. And research backs this up. As reported by The Huffington Post, “In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.”