Longtime Companion

With a successful film and stage career, Craig Lucas has written six plays that were performed on Broadway and Off Broadway, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Prelude to a Kiss," and most recently "The Light in the Piazza." He also adapted and directed his play "The Dying Gaul" for film. Lucas’ collaborator and Longtime Companion’s director, Norman René, died of AIDS in 1996.
FLICK Longtime Companion takes it title from the term that was used in obituaries to refer to the deceased's gay spouse, partner or lover. It's the portrait of a group of friends in NYC and Fire Island that we see for one day a year from 1980 over the span of 10 years, who are affected by AIDS, or the "gay cancer" as it was originally referred to in the New York Times. For having such a serious topic and several incredibly moving and memorable scenes (think of Bruce Davison, in an Oscar nominated performance, saying, "just let go…"), this film is insightful and lovingly told with humor.
The opening song, "The Tide Is High," sets the tone that something is about to overtake these characters but they won't let it hold them back. ("The tide is high but I'm moving on...I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that.") The ensemble cast is outstanding all around, with notable and enduring actors like Davison, Dermot Mulroney, Campbell Scott and Mary-Louise Parker.
There is no other scene in the movies that moves me more than the one on the beach, when three friends imagine all of their friends and other who’ve passed away returning for one last reunion. The song by Zane Campbell is appropriately titled "Post-Mortem Bar" and begins after the line "I want to be there if they ever find a cure..."
I've always wondered why there were two posters for this movie. The first one I saw has a close-up of Willy (Scott) and John (Mulroney) hugging. The second poster has a long shot of Willy , Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey) and Lisa (Parker) walking on the beach. Was this second poster created so as not to be in your face with two men, and to include a woman in order to appeal to a wider audience and appear that this is not just a film for gays? Also, Fuzzy is wearing a white t-shirt in the second poster, but in the film, he is wearing a black t-shirt with two sailors kissing with the caption, "Read my lips."
Film historian Vito Russo stated in The Advocate: "It is the first major movie to deal with gay men and AIDS; it doesn't try to explain gay life to a mainstream audience; and it contains more affection and intimacy between men than virtually any other film in recent memory."
(1990) My Score: 10 out of 10.

Craig Lucas is receiving an Artistic Achievement Award at the 13th annual Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival this Saturday, July 21 at 5pm at the Arts Bank followed by a screening of Longtime Companion.