Too much of everything

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Movie follows the life and times of gay drag queen Arnold Berkoff (Harvey Feinstein) from 1971-1980. It goes into his dealings with bisexual Ed (Brian Kerwin), Ed's girlfriend Laurel (Karen Young), cute young model Alan (Matthew Broderick), his mother (Anne Bancroft) and an adopted gay son David (Eddie Castrodad).The original play was about 4 hours long so naturally a lot was left out of this adaptation. Still, the fact that this got made at all back in 1988 is amazing. This was years before "Will & Grace" or "Queer As Folk". It came and went quickly but it should be rediscovered. The script is sharp and (for the most part) the acting is excellent. It deals realistically with a gay man trying to deal with family, love, men and relationships in the 1970s--but I think any gay man from any era could find plenty to identify with here. Fierstein is excellent in his Tony Award winning role. His voice is a little hard to take at first but you get used to it. Kerwin seems a bit too earnest as Ed but he's still pretty good. Broderick seems nervous too but he pulls off the role of Alan (although seeing him falling all over Fierstein IS pushing credibility). As a point of interest Broderick played David in the original stage version and said it helped his career quite a bit. Young is very good in her small role as Laurel and so is Ken Page in his small role as Murray. Bancroft is WAY over the top as Arnold's mother (but it fits the role) and Castrodad does what he can with his severely edited role as David. However his first meeting with Bancroft is hilarious. Also there's some beautiful direction here--a shot from up above NY after Arnold meets Ed always takes my breath away. Funny, smart, sweet, touching and sad--a very good movie. The two hours just fly by. WELL worth seeing. A 9.

When the three plays that make up this film were first combined and opened on Broadway, it was well received and had a long run. Why the movie didn't do better, I will never understand. The story of a man who is looking for love in a world that doesn't understand him is universal, it doesn't matter if he is gay or straight. Arnold Beckoff is a female illusionist in a successful club in New York. In the opening, as we watch him assume his stage persona (Virginia Hamm, we hear him expound on his views of relationships as a gay man who can be self assured and still not like himself much. We watch a typical performance with admiration for the work involved. After the performance we see Arnold and his friend Murray headed out for a nightcap and see Arnold's insecurities up close. While Murray appears to have a more hedonistic approach to the gay bar scene, Aronld clearly appears out of his element. As he bumps into Ed, we see a classic film meet-cute. They are both awkward and shy, but clearly attracted to one another. As the relation ship develops, we see that Arnold has almost a need to be in love, while Ed feels he needs to be in love-with a woman. Ed believes that he has to project an image, not just for his family and friends, but for himself. That is the one thing we learn that Arnold has no problem with, he wants people to know he's gay, and that is something he accepts in himself, whether or not his family does. We see a family dinner with his brother and parents, and that scene broke my heart. When his father offers him money until he "gets back on his feet", I was uncomfortable and didn't understand why until a minute later when Arnold and his brother are out on the patio having a smoke, and Arnold reveals he makes more money than his father, and I realized just how uncomfortable his parents were with his life and the choices he has made, his mother especially. Soon Arnold does find love with Alan, a young model who came to one of Arnold's shows. Alan, like Arnold, is comfortable with who he is, and he and Arnold become a couple. Ed comes back briefly into their lives at this point, as he and his wife invite them to visit the rural home that Ed has rebuilt. This central part of the film is taken from the second play in the Trilogy-Fugue in a Nursery. This was the part that I felt the film did a disservice to by opening up. In the play, this takes place with the four characters in the same bed, with a wonderful lighting effect that highlights the actors as they interact with each other. The film does not ruin it by any means, but you do not get the urgency that the play brings out and the quick cuts become jarring, in my opinion. This section brings tension to both couples, but Arnold and Alan overcome it, and look forward to adopting a child, and moving to a new apartment. However, the night they move in, Alan makes a choice that while heroic, changes the course of Arnold's life. The change is what we see in the final part of the film. We learn that there have been changes with Ed as well. The section of the film becomes ultimately a healing. How family relationships change, how romantic relations change and mature, and how the first generation (Arnold's mother) comes to understand the third (David, Arnold's adopted son) as well as deriving a better understand of her son and the life he has made for himself. This is ultimately an uplifting and emotional film, with dream performances. I urge everyone to see it, but I think it may hold the most meaning to those people who have a friend or family member who is gay, but just doesn't understand. Watch this film and get some answers.

Ineffective, miscast, and curiously awkward comedy-drama about a gay drag queen's search for true love. Harvey Fierstein adapted his stage triumph for the screen and has the leading role, but Fierstein (who has proved to be a great character actor in showy supporting roles) isn't quite able to carry off a lead, at least not on film. On-screen almost constantly, his sandpaper voice breaking up in mock-happiness or despair, he's too needy, too unsure of himself, and he takes visual and verbal short-cuts to emotions without taking the audience's sense of rhythm into consideration (he's always two steps ahead, beating us to the laughs and the pathos). As for his script, the dialogue has the unmistakable ring of late-night-movie clichés, and director Paul Bogart's comic timing is gummy and rehearsed. Anne Bancroft, a great actress, is miscast once again as Harvey's mother (she seldom found a role that suited her, particularly after "The Graduate"). Tidy, lackluster scenario is plastic and unconvincing, as are Matthew Broderick and Brian Kerwin as Fierstein's lovers. It's a harmless sitcom...and what a shame that is. ** from ****

I first saw this film as a young(er) gay man and enjoyed it immensely! It has camp humour, failing relationships, serious comment on mother/son relationships and the gorgeous Matthew Broderick. What more could you ask for in a film? As a post-aids story of a bitchy and very funny Jewish drag queen this hits home it's social comment in a vibrant and brash manner. In particular the scene with Arnold and his mother at the cemetery packs an emotional punch. Anne Bancroft is superb as the dry and ever critical mother. I'd recommend this film to anyone (regardless of sexual orientation) looking for laughter, pathos, larger than life characters and tragedy all mixed together in a wonderful, chaotic and sometimes touching movie.