Review of Philadelphia (1993) by Jen H — 05 Jun 2010

Fine performances all around. Despite the (happily) increased visibility/awareness of homosexuality and AIDS nowadays, Philadelphia still holds relevance seventeen years on.

My favorite thing was seeing Joe Miller's homophobia portrayed as clearly wrong, but *understandable* (who doesn't, to some extent, fear the unknown and see the world through the narrow prism of his social norms?) and, most importantly, surmountable. I read that Jonathan Demme took great care to make this film accessible to just that sort of person and I salute such an effort - we can't expect people to change if, in our rush to demonize, we refuse to believe that they can.

(Postscript: To that end, the movie is admittedly shy about portraying things like gay physical affection - regrettable, but, well, baby steps.).