HBOSo how much crying did you do over the past couple hours?
HBO took a bit of a Game of Thrones break tonight to give us a fairly devastating look at the HIV/AIDS crisis that struck in the gay community in New York in the early 1980's. Mark Ruffalo starred as Ned Weeks, a gay Jewish-American writer who spoke very loudly and publicly about the disease to help educate the public at a time when many nurses and doctors refused to even enter the same room as a patient exhibiting symptoms.
The film, directed by Ryan Murphy, featured quite a few big names aside from Ruffalo, including Julia Roberts as a doctor who essentially made it her life's mission to understand and treat the disease, and Matt Bomer as the New York Times reporter who became the love of Ned's life. Taylor Kitsch, Johnathan Groff, Alfred Molina, and The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons also starred.
The Normal Heart was adapted from the play of the same name, which premiered in 1985 and was written by Larry Kramer. Parts of the play were largely autobiographical, and many of the characters came from Kramer's real-life experiences.
So what did you think? Was this an effective screen adaptation of the play? Can Ryan Murphy do (mostly) no wrong? Were you a tad distracted by the flashback to when Ned and Felix met taking the form of a commercial for a bath house? Do you hope for more films along the same vein? Let us know in the comments, unless you're still crying too hard to type. If so, we completely understand.