Meant as a passionate chronicle of a great love, and a sobering reminder of the stigma of AIDS, the pic blandly conjures these sentiments and stands as one of the more wrong-footed evocations of coming out in the 1970s and '80s.
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Holding the Man
Overview
Tim and John fell in love while teenagers at their all-boys high school. John was captain of the football team, Tim an aspiring actor playing a minor part in Romeo and Juliet. Their romance endured for 15 years in the face of everything life threw at it – the separations, the discrimination, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses – until the only problem that love can't solve tried to destroy them.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
An affecting and unexpectedly funny tale of two lovers who had the misfortune to come of age during the burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980's.
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