The Boys in the Band (2020)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

The devastating brilliance of The Boys in the Band is back in a big way with its newest incarnation, which debuted on Netflix recently. This production has been lifted directly from its brief Broadway revival in 2018, including its entire cast and director, and though its stagey delivery will surely invite criticism from some, it allows those of us who enjoy the theatre to experience something of what we might see on stage. With most responsible theatre groups still shut down these days, heaven knows we needed something like this. (And of course Hamilton, but that's been on repeat all summer!)

It's one of the defining dinner-party-gone-wrong dramas, and remarkably noteworthy for many reasons. Mart Crowley's original off-Broadway play premiered in 1968 and was groundbreaking for portraying a group of gay men authentically. They weren't isolated, and they weren't a trope: the villain, the victim, the sidekick. They weren't even heroic, which wouldn't happen yet for many years. The entire play explores their lives in a way that, now, feels like a perfect experience dropped into a time capsule: only the next year, which brought the Stonewall riots, changed queer urban culture forever. Not long after, as AIDS claimed the lives of thousands, gay art grew urgent, preachy, tragic, and poignant. Because of the intersection of queer lives, mainstream media, and increasing social justice, it's terribly difficult for most young people today to grasp the revolutionary power of The Boys in the Band, even if it wasn't all that well-received in its day.

But it's still a magnificent drama on its own terms, and as long as we let its tempo, language, and profound truths guide us, this new film works wonders on the screen. Thankfully, director Joe Mantello and producer Ryan Murphy avoid any attempts to modernize or dumb-down the original text, making this film as important (if more accessible) than William Friedkin's 1970 film. The play doesn't need to be topical because it will always be relevant, and the artists here trust the work to stand on its own. With only a few added moments to make this feel less like it was shot on stage, the film takes place almost entirely within one character's apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. What begins as a not-quite-surprising birthday party turns into a night of chaos as the characters drink, play games, and reveal awful truths about themselves and each other.

Jim Parsons plays Michael, the host, whose recent sobriety is put to the test as he prepares for company. His former college roommate Alan has called and wants to visit, but when Michael tells him he's having friends over Alan won't like, Alan breaks into tears (something the very straight character certainly hasn't done before). Michael allows his friend a brief time to come, but before long the gaggle of gays show up and get a little rowdy. It would be easy to classify this bunch of queens as too campy, too effete, too much; but you'd be forgetting that this was a time that their behaviors -- even their identities, as much as the concept existed then -- were strictly illegal. Once in the privacy of a home, they could finally relax and be as flamboyant as they could not in the "real" world. And does that affect their mannerisms? You bet.

You could say the characters are fairly stereotypical, by today's standards, but that washes away the fact that these stereotypes had not yet been cemented as fundamental to queer representation in art. We have effeminate interior decorator Emory, tortured and hunky former lover Donald (who, it is suggested, is undergoing psychoanalysis in an early form of conversion therapy), artist Larry who prefers to sleep around and his live-in boyfriend Hank who is still married to a woman, and finally librarian Bernard, a hopeless romantic and the only black man. We know that, based on the time period and the verbal cruelty of these queers, before long someone will call him the "n" word. And I nearly forgot the guest of honor: Harold, played by a deliciously wicked Zachary Quinto, the lapsed Catholic and alcoholic riddled with a poisonous mix of vanity and malice.

As the night slowly becomes a nightmare, we're locked in the genius world of Eugene O'Neill and Edward Albee, in a party-hell that is as absorbing as it is repugnant. Its grotesquerie reaches a chillingly quiet climax during a particularly nasty party game in which the men take turns calling the one person they've loved the most and telling them. Revelations spiral out of control and the characters are each given chances to dramatically shine; of course the central issue, a now-cliché MacGuffin in which the one most repelled by gay men is probably gay himself, comes to the fore before all ends with tears. Of course, that's not to deny our own devilish pleasure at watching a member of the hegemony get what's coming to him when he is suddenly at the mercy of those he detests. I read that "schadenfreude" was the most-searched vocabulary word after Trump caught the coronavirus. The same concept is dramatic gold here.

If for nothing else, this movie is a delicious drama that perfectly captures real lives lived in a time before what most of us can remember. As such, it can foster lively and enlightening discussions about history, politics, and social justice as easily as it can about friendship, love, truth, and the tragedy of our lives. Boasting memorable performances, beautiful production design, and its timeless script, The Boys in the Band ultimately reminds us all that denying and disguising ourselves can only end with pain, but embracing and building each other up allows us to hope.