The Normal Heart 2014

Melissa Lafsky, New York Observer: Watch at your own risk, but to not watch the film - or more importantly, learn from it - is an even higher risk. Read more

Nancy DeWolf Smith, Wall Street Journal: In a film directed by Ryan Murphy and with strong performances, including those by Mr. Ruffalo, Ms. Roberts, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons and Alfred Molina, Mr. Mantello's anguished lament may be the most haunting. Read more

James Poniewozik, TIME Magazine: Some 30 years later, this movie-strident, passionate, frenetic, and aching-is a reminder, as Memorial Day weekend begins the summer, of all those empty spots the plague left on the beach. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: A character-oriented drama with theatrical talent and values that would face challenges finding much purchase at the modern-day multiplex. The result is a movie, for mostly better and sometimes worse, that wears its heart on its sleeve. Read more

Brandon Nowalk, AV Club: Unfortunately, powerful as the play is, Ryan Murphy's adaptation of it makes for a cinematic tearjerker that's more relentless than it is masterful. Read more

Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post: Moving, well acted and important for a generation who may be unfamiliar with the source material. But the TV version, also written by Kramer, doesn't have the emotional heft of the play. Read more

Tim Goodman, Hollywood Reporter: The Normal Heart manages to work both sides of the issue - the anger at inaction and those complicit in turning a blind eye, and the personal toll the disease took. Read more

Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times: Time, and rewrites, have softened some of the play's stridency. More important, the romance between Weeks (Ruffalo) and his lover, Felix (Bomer), is given a more prominent role as is Felix's death spiral, giving the story power both broad and intimate. Read more

Eric Sasson, The New Republic: There is less reporting on poverty in America than on any other major societal issue. So it is with AIDS. That alone makes The Normal Heart an important film. Read more

Verne Gay, Newsday: Powerful, still full of anger, and hard to watch. Read more

David Hinckley, New York Daily News: This reincarnation of The Normal Heart raises all the right disturbing questions. Read more

Neil Genzlinger, New York Times: It's a frightening thing to see, and an example of how Mr. Kramer and Mr. Murphy take one of the play's strong points and, through the flexibility afforded by film, make it even more powerful. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: Overscored and overwrought, The Normal Heart is a tough pill to swallow. The direction of Ryan Murphy (Glee) is piercingly staccato (and visually inconsistent). The tender moments don't resonate, and the fraught moments feel hysterical. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Written, directed and acted with a passion that radiates off the screen, The Normal Heart is drama at its most incendiary, a blunt instrument that is also poetic and profound. Read more

David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle: 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. Read more

Willa Paskin, Slate: The Normal Heart is a blunt, effective instrument, a handsome, walloping cudgel that begins in gay paradise on the eve of the apocalypse: Fire Island, 1982. Read more

Rick Nelson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Matt Bomer is heartbreaking as a New York Times style reporter looking for love in a loveless city. His physical transformation is astonishing and agonizing. Read more

Gail Pennington, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Normal Heart will drive any viewer with a heart at all to tears. Read more

Lori Rackl, Chicago Sun-Times: Directed by Ryan Murphy, it's bound to put Emmys in the hands of a remarkable cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina, Jim Parsons and Matt Bomer. Read more

Ed Bark, Uncle Barky: The Normal Heart grows in poignancy as characters we've come to know are affected or afflicted by AIDS. Read more

Robert Bianco, USA Today: You will learn lessons that should not be forgotten about the fear, foolishness, prejudice and intentional blindness that doomed millions to die who might otherwise have been saved. But the anger that lesson should provoke is either muted or missing. Read more

Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Magazine/Vulture: If anger and suffering were all there were to The Normal Heart, watching it would be torture. Luckily, it has heart to match its guts. Read more

Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe: The powerful film, adapted from the 1985 play by Larry Kramer, joins the best of the genre - Longtime Companion, Parting Glances, An Early Frost, Philadelphia, the shattering documentary Silverlake Life - as a monument to the lives lost. Read more