Philadelphia

I have largely been home-bound for the last two weeks. Hardly any college, [of course] no studies, no outings. So with nothing much to do, this is the third Tom Hanks movie I watched this week after Forrest Gump and Cast Away.

Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington are lawyers. The opening scene of the movie shows them fighting a civil construction case. The first thing that pops in my mind is, it looks like a lawyer-eat-lawyer movie. [No, I prefer not reading up about the movie before watching it]. Twenty minutes hence, as Hanks announces to Washington that he has AIDS and got fired because of it, methinks, “Oh, Fir Milenge.” As it turns out, the movie is altogether different from the first few impressions I formed of it.

The central idea of the movie is about getting justice to an AIDS-infected highly competent lawyer who got fired not because he has AIDS, but because of his sexual preference. Joe Miller [Denzel Washington], a severe homophobe and an AIDS-fearing “normal” man has a change of mind when he sees and understands that being gay is not about “just trying to get in your pants.” That all of us have the very basic right to sleep and live and be happy with whomever we wish to, regardless of the gender. That anyone can contract AIDS even if they remained truly faithful to their partners, never did drugs and always slept with people of the other sex.

I liked the movie, although it left me thinking that the out-of-courtroom scenes could have been handled with more emotion and detailing. Tom Hanks’s personal, emotional and professional trauma largely goes undepicted as Denzel Washington steals the limelight with his power-packed performance of the man who fights for, and with Hanks.

The movie ends with a memorial service at Hanks’ home where a video of his happy childhood is being shown to the guests. We could have really done with a better, more touching ending.

PS: 1. I found the movie not so much either about Tom Hanks or Philadelphia the city. Spare one reference about the significance of liberty and freedom in the city of Philadelphia, I could not find a relation between the title and the story. Someone has a clue?

2. I watched Cast Away a couple of days back and believe me I sat through the entire length of the movie only because of Tom Hanks. I liked the middle-half when he is stranded on that island. Box the opening and the ending.

3. Tom Hanks actually looked handsome at some point of time!