Title: Sentimental Dreck
Product review: Wildly offensive film which uses the AIDS crisis as an opportunity for self-righteous shallow soap-opera. Eric Roberts' lover leaves him when Roberts is diagnosed with HIV. This potentially powerful situation could have led to an honest portrayal of the pressures, both external and internal, present on gay relationships. But no, Randal Kleiser (the director of Grease and the Blue Lagoon) has no interest in anything that "deep." He wants lots of opportunities for tearful farewells, tearful recriminations, and tearful tearfulness. The film succeeds best as a depiction of a community meeting a devastating plague with passive aggressiveness, bitchiness, anger, rage, hatred, unforgivingness, and a notable lack of grace. As a gay man who has lost several friends to AIDS, and who knows several couples who have worked very hard to salvage relationships despite one partner being HIV+, I found this film unspeakably offensive.
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