Philadelphia (1993)

Directed by Jonathan Demme. Starring Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas, Robert Ridgely, Joanne Woodward, Ron Vawter, Lisa Summerour, Charles Napier, Anna Deavere Smith, Daniel von Bargen, Bradley Whitford, John Bedford Lloyd. [R]

A major law firm fires its fast-rising senior associate (Hanks) for unsatisfactory work performance, but he believes it was because they discovered he was a gay man afflicted with AIDS, so he hires an ambulance-chaser (Washington) to represent him in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit. The first mainstream film to deal with the AIDS epidemic comes at its subject almost sideways, with Ron Nyswaner’s screenplay focusing more on the legal action aspect than the disease’s debilitating effect on the patient, the patient’s loved ones, and the gay community at large (Washington’s homophobic lawyer, in fact, even gets slightly more attention than Hanks’s brave sufferer). Well-acted by all principals, especially Hanks in an Oscar-winning role, though he almost acts in a vacuum of character, since very little is explored about his personal life and the company he keeps (including his dedicated lover played by Banderas); he also has a family that’s a little too perfect, making the uplift through pathos at the inevitable conclusion all the more potent but manipulated. Too well-intentioned and affecting to dismiss, and despite its flaws, serves as a spotlighted documentation of a terrible blight that went ignored by so many for far too long. Pic also was a rare non-musical to score multiple Best Original Song nominations from the Academy Awards (“Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen, and “Philadelphia” by Neil Young); both are excellent, but only one could win, and that was the Boss.

70/100