Movie Review - 1985 (2018)

Yen Tan is a Malaysian filmmaker who is now an American citizen based in Dallas, Texas. He's openly gay. His first feature-length film was Happy Birthday (2002), a narrative about five queer people in Texas dealing with fairly heavy issues. The movie was shot on video but projected in black-and-white. It's filmed in a very still and quiet fashion, and it establishes a style that Tan would take forward but not more so than here. In 2016, Tan released a short film at the SXSW Film Festival called 1985, which was about a man dying of AIDS. In the short film, we see the man with the lesions on obvious spots on his body. We hear him coughing. We see him taking medicine. We see him get dirty looks from people at the grocery store. We see him living with it. This feature is a remake of that short film, but, in a lot of ways, that short film could be seen as a prequel to this feature.

The difference is that the short film was projected in color. This feature was shot on Super 16mm in black-and-white. When projected and when seen, you can tell that it was shot on 16mm because of the graininess of the image. The whole film is awash in grain, as if it were bathed in sand on a beach somewhere.

The protagonist here is noticeably younger than in the short film. The protagonist in the short film goes from Texas to Florida where he confronts his mom solely. Here, the protagonist goes from New York to Texas where he's instead picked up by his dad at the airport. The protagonist in the short film has to have makeup lessons in order to hide his illness. It's not clear that the protagonist here has to go to those lengths yet.

In the short film, the man's family seems to know about him and his situation already. Here, the family seems to be mostly in the dark. Both films are about what a man does in relation to his family when he knows he's dying. Both films have the man try to make that reality easier for his family. The short film tries to do so purely on a superficial manner but in a way that still confronts the fears and sadness of the disease when it was at its height of terror. This feature tries to do so by avoiding and retreating but from a character standpoint that underscores the hopelessness that some gay men felt.

There have been a ton of material done about HIV and AIDS that another film about it might seem like literal sand on a beach. However, the AIDS epidemic is for gay people what the Holocaust was for Jewish people. There are tons of stories about it because there needs to be. So many lives were needlessly lost and the collective or larger response was so atrocious or ignorant that people need to be reminded of the humanity that was taken, as well as the struggle that still persists for many gay men today.

Cory Michael Smith (Gotham and Carol) stars as Adrian Lester, a young man in his mid to late twenties who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. He left several years ago to live in New York City and work at an ad agency. He decides to return home for Christmas. His last time home was Thanksgiving 1982. In that time, he's grown distant from his family. His little brother was supposed to visit him in the city and Adrian cancelled it. When he's picked up by his dad, you can feel the tension between the two, but we're not sure why. If you know the premise and subtext, then it's easy to guess, but a lot is unspoken and it makes for good drama.

Michael Chiklis (Gotham and The Shield) co-stars as Dale Lester, the father to Adrian. He's a guy who prays every time before a meal. He loves football. He doesn't get art or theater. He was a Vietnam War veteran. He drives a truck that has a sticker on it promoting President Ronald Reagan who was inaugurated again that year. This gives you an idea of who Dale is. However, what's great about Tan's writing and Chiklis' performance is that the underlying tension is a rather homophobic one, but it's not homophobia done in a stereotypical way.

Aidan Langford plays Andrew Lester, the younger brother to Adrian. There are some stereotypical things about him that indicates strongly that he too is gay. Later, his dad will refer to it as "being soft." It's clear that Dale knows about his son and tries in small ways to discourage the behavior. A lot of it is covered in the family's religiosity. For example, Dale doesn't want his son indulging in "secular music."

Virginia Madsen (Joy and Sideways) also co-stars as Eileen Lester, the mother to Adrian. She reveals herself to be more liberal than her husband. She is a housewife for the most part, but that's not all she is. She's smart and observant. She perhaps doesn't pick up on things at first, but she does figure things out by the end. By that end, she comes across as just a strong, loving force that in a lot of ways is holding the family together.

In a weird way, this movie is about Adrian coming home and getting to know his family all over again. All the aforementioned stuff about his mother is stuff that he learns himself while talking to her in a bubble bath. The stuff about his brother is stuff he learns while sitting on his bed on Christmas Eve morning before breakfast. Some of the more surprising things he learns about his dad, he learns during this trip as well. It's ironic that in a movie where a character keeps a lot of himself hidden, a lot of things about those around him are exposed. Jamie Chung also from Gotham and The Gifted has a good role here too as Carly, the best friend of Adrian.

Not Rated but for general audiences.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 25 mins.

Available on DVD and VOD.