Review: Philadelphia

Hot-shot lawyer Tom Hanks is fired by his large firm apparently for a misplaced account. Hanks believes it is because his superiors found out that he has AIDS. He goes to Denzel Washington, an ambulance chaser who hates gays (which Hanks happens to be), but takes the case to sue the firm anyway. Jason Robards Jr. is the head honcho, a typical back-slapping, cigar-smoking type, and his partners are played by Robert Ridgely and Ron Vawter. Joanne Woodward is Hanks’ supportive mother, Antonio Banderas his partner, Mary Steenburgen the somewhat half-hearted opposing attorney (she looks uncomfortable in the role, and only partly because it suits the character if you ask me), Tracey Walter an insensitive librarian, Charles Napier a fair-minded judge, and Anna Deavere Smith has an amusing small turn as a sympathetic employee whose attire earns ire from the bigwigs, for being ‘too ethnic’.

Powerful and entertaining 1993 Jonathan Demme (“Silence of the Lambs”) mixture of AIDS awareness flick and courtroom drama, puts too little emphasis into Hanks’ supportive family, but scores in pretty much every other aspect. Oscar-winner Hanks is the key, with a deeply moving, quite down-to-earth characterisation. His presence alone likely contributed to people seeing this film, who might not otherwise, given the depressing and controversial subject matter. Washington meanwhile, acts as the mouthpiece for many people no doubt, and is also fine as the homophobic lawyer who nonetheless sees a wrong needing to be corrected. Great work by Robards, too (aside from one dopey speech in a flashback), and a pretty good cameo by Demme regular Roger Corman.

Earned the scorn of many critics for being too mainstream (and not focusing on the bond between Hanks and his lover Banderas), but it’s not made for them, perhaps not even made for me actually, it’s made for those not yet converted to this way of thinking- i.e. The homophobes, or those with an apathetic attitude towards the subject. Thus, it is still a very important film, and could not in my view, have worked any other way. That isn’t to say that it would or has worked, of course, homophobes might just skip the film altogether, I guess. It’s their loss, but if the film were any less mainstream, I doubt it would have an audience outside of snooty, toffee-nosed critics (namely the cynical ones who aren’t among this film’s fans, and there are quite a few, actually).

Soundtrack features two songs that open and close the film that are equally haunting; Bruce Springsteen’s Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia”, and my personal favourite, Neil Young’s “Philadelphia” (which was beaten out for the gong by the more commercial, and therefore more often played, Springsteen number). I dare you not to shed a tear when that song starts up.

The screenplay is by Ron Nyswaner (“Gross Anatomy”, Gillian Armstrong’s “Mrs. Soffel”) is imperfect, but like the film overall, it does a disservice to criticise it too much for preaching to the choir. Do people really believe that homophobia and apathy towards AIDS sufferers is totally absent from the world in 2012, let alone back in 1993? What kind of moron pills are these people taking?

Rating: A