Delayed Reaction: Torch Song Trilogy

Premise: A trio of stories spanning a decade following a gay man in San Francisco navigating relationships and responsibilities.

 

I won't pretend to be a scholar of the play(s) this is based on. I saw a similarly pared down production of it a couple years ago and that's about all I know. This is the work that made Harvey Fierstein famous. He wrote these three plays at different times, featuring many of the same characters, then combined them into one massive play, which became the trilogy. Having never seen those full plays, I can't say how well he adapted them down for this movie. All I can say is that the movie feels cohesive, and there aren't any obvious lingering holes, like characters with unexplained absences.

 

Stay with me for a moment here...I really love watching movies about WWI made before WWII. WWII changed everything about how we think of war and severely eclipsed the more complex WWI. I like Torch Song Trilogy in much the same way. It's this commercial LGBTQ+ story from before the AIDS crisis. It's certainly important to discuss AIDS and the crisis in the 80s and beyond. There is a tenor to Torch Song Trilogy that's different though. The relationships and concerns are different. It's also a sobering reminder that the community had enough working against them even before AIDS.

 

I'm used to seeing Harvey Fierstein in some of his flatter 90's roles, so it was nice to see him playing this multi-faceted character that was obviously written by him for him. Anne Bancroft is great as his disapproving mother. It's interesting to think about this as Matthew Broderick's return to film after his infamous and deadly car accident. I like how much of this movie feels like if could be a late 70s sitcom. Like a Norman Lear show that mixes social consciousness with comedy zingers. I can definitely feel how the story's natural state is on stage in the way that characters walk in and out of scenes (especially in the third part), but this is a respectable adaptation to screen.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend