Do most people think of how their stories will be told? Probably when they are closer to the end. That’s the question at the heart of 1985. The greater question it poses is how does someone make sure they are are remembered as their whole self when society has conspired to muffle their voice?
The film tells the story of 20 something New Yorker returning home one last time to his small hometown in Texas before succumbing to death from AIDS. Adrian (Cory Michael Smith who's appeared in Carol and Wonderstruck) knows he’s dying so he tries to patch up things with his loving but disapproving religious parents (Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis), create memories and a connection with his preteen brother Andrew (Aidan Langford) and finally own up to a former girlfriend (Jamie Chung) who he’s never come out to...
The story is set over a few days at Christmas as the family exchanges gifts, goes to church, and tries to talk to each other. The talking doesn’t come easy and with the exception of Andrew who’s unencumbered by his young age, no one wants to be entirely honest.
The scope of the film is small and the locations limited, yet its ambition is big as it dares to tell this story as a way of writing the unwritten history of that generation of queer men who died in the 80s and 90s. It is most effective as a howl for those men against the inexplicability of their deaths. Adrian’s main concern is that his younger brother will know him as he is, not some sanitized version told by the parents.
Director and screenwriter Yen Tan is successful at wringing big emotions from small everyday moments. Listening to a church sermon, having breakfast or dancing in a club get fuller meaning because of all the conversations unsaid. The sensitive performances and the black and white super 16 cinematography add poignancy and gravity to the intimate interactions between these characters.
This type of film is designed to get our tears and cry I did. But I left the screening angry. Angry about how the world, a moralistic society, and a government let down a whole generation and hastened their death by not caring. Tan manages to pay tribute to that lost generation with empathy and outrage.