Only a few months after the unfortunate passing of iconic gay playwright Mart Crowley, we receive another screen adaptation of his seminal masterwork The Boys in the Band. A much celebrated play that for a long period of time was maligned by the LGBT+ community, for upon its original release in the 1960s, the community didn’t want the biggest theatrical representation of the time (a time of gradually growing acceptance) to be a group of men in their apartment arguing and self-hating. A semi-understandable point of view that has luckily been swayed and the play is now studied and presented with the respect that it should be given. For LGBT+ people are like all people, and all people have good traits and bad traits. Crowley presents us with a group of gay men in 1968 New York, joining to celebrate one of our their peers' birthdays. Booze flows, unexpected guests arrive and painful truths and bitter secrets are revealed in this beautifully written play. But today, we’re not talking about the play, we’re talking about the 2020 Netflix adaptation, which took the director and entire cast from the much acclaimed 2018 Broadway production (noted for having a cast of entirely openly gay men). Let’s see how it fares.

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Before we get to this, I have to address the elephant in the room: the sublime 1970 film adaptation, directed by William Friedkin, featuring the original off-Broadway cast (the 2018 revival was the first time the play was ever on Broadway and it was for its 50th anniversary). That film is pure perfection and for the record, I’d probably give it a 9/10 - it really is that great. So in many ways, although I was tremendously excited for this piece with the cast and director, I couldn’t help but feel that it would be slightly redundant. I can say that this new film isn’t redundant in the slightest, but it still never reaches the true peaks of the original. I think the performances are funnier and more deeply affecting in the 1970 film. Overall, I feel that Friedkin’s gritty touch adds more realism to the film and ultimately leads to have a profounder effect on the audience. I must also comment that the 1970 film uses the original play-text, whereas as this film uses Crowley’s revised edition. All these changes, I believe, are for the worse. Certain references are removed that lead to a loss of the overall taste of 70s New York that you get with the original. Here, it more so feels artificial. Although the film keeps much of profanity and brutality of the original, it does seem to lack that viscous bite that the original has. Crowley also removed an utterance from the final scene that has always touched me profoundly and is, in many ways, the first line I think of when I think of the film - none other than, of course, "call you tomorrow". With these comments made, I feel we can now move onto actually looking at the film properly.

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Let’s talk about the boys that make up our band this time around. Zachary Quinto is Harold (the birthday boy) and suffers slightly from doing what seems to be an impression of Leonard Frey (the original Harold). Although, Quinto does do a marvellous impression and the work aside from this angle of it is a great delivering of the sombre and bitter Harold. Matt Bomer as Donald (the on-off again lover of Michael, our party host) is also subtly great, never trying to overpower any of the ensemble at any point, which is of course the key to the character. Charlie Carver as the cowboy is dumb and funny yet sweet and kind, exactly what he needs to be, bringing just enough defence to the moments where he turns to defend himself. Robin de Jesus as Emory (the flamboyant "screaming queen" of the bunch) and Michael Benjamin Washington as Bernard (the quiet one in the group) both bring the most difference to their 1970 film counterparts and ultimately lead to their performances being two of the most watchable in the film. Especially Washington, who brings a deep pain to the delivery of his monologue that haunts and hangs over the following scenes. Similar can be said about Jesus’ delivery of Emory’s monologue. Brian Hutchinson brings a lot less conflict to the character of Alan and is interesting to view in comparison, but I don’t know the effect it would have on the viewer if this was all they were watching. The standouts of the film, however, are real life couple Andrew Rannells and Tuc Watkins, who play couple Hank and Larry. The relationship between them is the most dramatic aspect of the second half of the film and Rannels and Watkins bring so much painful depth and humanity - as well as notes of great comedy - that it makes the heartbreaking confrontations that the two share all the more painful to bear.

Jim Parsons is for me the only lacking individual in the cast, playing Michael, the host of our party and in many ways our lead character in this ensemble. His final scene is of a supremely heightened emotional nature, yet he does not really get there, with a very artificial delivery of some very touching dialogue. Parsons was great for the rest of the film and his final lines after the breakdown were also given great pathos, but this breakdown really made the script look bad and as if the moment comes out of nowhere. However, we know from the play and the original film that, when done well, this moment is far from coming out of the blue and is the ultimate eventuality that has loomed over the entire night. It is the unfortunate final positioning of this moment that leads to the film losing all of the impeccable momentum that it has built upon throughout. For lack of a better phrasing, Parsons let the team down at the final hurdle.

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I do have to give great credit to Joe Mantello, a truly astonishing theatre director who had directed just one film prior to this. Mantello’s work here in bringing the play to the screen is wonderful and does that ever so difficult thing of making a film of a play not just feel like a camera placed in front of the stage. In the world of pro-shot musicals and stage productions, a capability with the camera in adaptation is more needed than ever. Mantello makes more choices in expanding the play than Friedkin did. Friedkin did add a brief montage at the top of his adaptation, bringing us into the world of 70s New York before we make residence in Michael’s apartment. Yet, Mantello also adds a concluding montage, which I do feel works, but does eliminate the brutality of the snap-cut-to-credits nature of the original text and film. Mantello’s other choice is a few fleeting inserts relating to the stories told in the second half of the film. These, again, are just fleeting and just brief enough to not take us out of the piece too much; for me, they worked. They were also beautifully shot by cinematographer Bill Pope. The only inserts that I felt were unnecessary were a few glimpses back to a high school prom, where Pope’s imagery and Mantello’s direction led to it feeling a little bit more saccharine than it needed be. In many ways, the film is far more saccharine than it ever should be and this means the brutality of the piece is lacking, making it an entirely different beast, despite having the same script with all but a few minor cosmetic changes.
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A superb 8/10. There is a part of me that wants to give the film a lower ranking; after all, none of its alterations or adaptations are superior in any way to the original film. However, the text is still perfect and Mantello delivers it to the screen wonderfully, with another all out terrific cast. Never worse than the original. Often just as good, but never better. But I am very glad that it will bring Crowley’s masterpiece to another generation, and perhaps bring more to the original film too.

P.S. This is the second time that Ryan Murphy has had a hand in bringing to the screen a seminal gay play, having adapted and directed 2014’s The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. Another marvellous film. To put it simply, this postscript serves as a pure recommendation for that film.

-Thomas Carruthers