Review of Philadelphia (1993) by Deb S — 05 Feb 2010

Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a talented young attorney at a prestigious Philadelphia law office who is successful, easy-going, and secretly gay; something he kept from his employers. His record is top class and he's been assigned the most prestigious case in the company's history. However, when he becomes afflicted by AIDS his bosses fire him on grounds of incompetency, when a report he made, mysteriously disappears from both his desk and computer hard drive. He however suspects that they have fired him due to their discovery of his sexuality and his illness and tries to hire a lawyer to take his case and sue the firm for unfair dismissal and lost earnings, but nobody will take an AIDS patient as a client.

He ends up approaching Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to represent him but Joe has a few issues of his own with gay people and steadfastly refuses. Andrew persists, and gradually Joe comes to grips with Andrew's worth and dignity as a human being. The thought of a homosexual white man with AID's hiring a homophobic African American man as a lawyer was brilliant. The courtroom provided Washington the stage to make his case against fear, hatred and discrimination of those 'different' from us in this "touchy" topic.

I thought the script was well written and the interaction between the characters was the most honest I have ever seen in a movie. Overall, a controversial but touching, emotional, funny, and honest movie with both Washington and Hanks giving superb performances! Highly recommended.