This movie doesn't trigger any emotions towards "minorities". Really crappy execution for that concrete purpose. I know it was back in 1993, and then AIDS-related topics were much more boo'ed than nowadays, but why do you have to make a movie this yellow? Disgusting.
shareI disagree. I know this movie divides people right down the centre, but for a film made a mere 8 years after the death of Rock Hudson and the beginning of the AIDS scare that began to crawl over the US and the globe in general, I'd say this movie is dead on. It is criticised by a lot of people, but it's for so many diverse reasons I don't even care anymore. To each his own. The director wanted to make sure the film really drove home how people suffer physically, mentally, and socially from this illness, the stigma that comes with it, how they suffer alone sometimes, even if they are sometimes surrounded by a caring family. The director wanted this to reach the mainstream. I love the film.
This is why the movie does not hold up for me. For the time, it was very groundbreaking, but even back then (probably because I already was a progressive sort), I thought the film was one-dimensional. It had to be because AIDS was still so misunderstood by the general community; it was ao divisive.
So "Philadelphia" had to cram down your throat who the bad guys were (in case there was any doubt). The family of Andrew had to be so damn syrupy and sickeningly supportive. (Hey, good for them, but every single one having no feelings about a public lawsuit ahead? At most the sister worried about mommy and daddy's feelings, but it was quickly dropped.)
The movie just had to prove to you how you should feel, and with so many uneducated people on the subject then, I get that. However, from the sinister music at "the right time," to the camera angles done for emotional emphasis, and eapecially the characters stripped down to caricature-level, it does not hold up well.