Regardless of being gay or straight in the 80s, AIDS has irrevocably shifted America in ways it long refused to acknowledge. The six New Yorkers at the center of Angels in America have their lives completely shifted due to the disease, but the way Tony Kushner weaves the disease into various social and religious concerns of the end of the 21st century, and the way director Mike Nichols translates Kushner’s brilliant play into a moving, yet comedic near six-hour miniseries proves how intrinsically linked these irrevocable shifts– the grief, the pain, and the need for hope– has been to the bittersweet progress America has made and has yet to make.
Synopsis
Angels in America is a 2003 American HBO miniseries directed by Mike Nichols and based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1991 play of the same name by Tony Kushner. Set in 1985, the film revolves around six New Yorkers whose lives intersect. At its core, it is the fantastical story of Prior Walter, a gay man living with AIDS who is visited by an angel. The film explores a wide variety of themes, including Reagan era politics, the spreading AIDS epidemic, and a rapidly changing social and political climate.
Storyline
New York, 1985. After his lover’s grandma’s funeral, Prior Walter, a gay man living with AIDS, starts to receive seemingly divine visions from a visiting angel.
TLDR
Life changing.
What stands out
The fact that this was cut up into a mini-series. A six hour runtime might be quite difficult to schedule had Angels in America been made into a film, but the strength of the material, the star-studded cast, and excellent execution might have worked for a theatrical release, and maybe might have established itself more firmly into public imagination.
