MOVIE REVIEW : Heroic Response to AIDS Scourge in ‘Companion’

“Longtime Companion,” which opens Friday at the Westside Pavilion and the Beverly Center, arrives with a media blitz unusual for such an intimate, small-scale, no-star film. And this is especially heartening, considering that it is the first theatrical release with a number of well-established actors to deal with AIDS. While by no means flawless, it offers an illuminating, deeply moving experience as it concentrates on that segment of society in which the catastrophic disease had its initial--and enduring--impact.

As the ‘80s dawned, young homosexuals, riding the crest of gay liberation, had good reason to look toward the future with optimism in regard to both their personal and professional lives. “Longtime Companion” introduces us to such a group of men, most of them friends, living in Manhattan. However, it’s July 3, 1981, and they’ve all been reading and talking about a New York Times article discussing a mysterious, unnamed disease that has claimed the lives of 41 gay men. They’re disturbed by the report, but they don’t see how it applies to them. The victims, they reason, must have been caught up in the excesses of the liberation movement----too much promiscuous sex and too many poppers.

Starting in that summer of 1981, writer Craig Lucas and director Norman Rene follow the lives of three gay couples and their friends at intervals over the next eight years. In doing so they acquaint us with some very likable people--and chart quite accurately the course of AIDS: its horrific, remorseless spread, the growing knowledge (and fear) surrounding it, and how decent, ordinary people have confronted it bravely. “Longtime Companion”--the wry title refers to the familiar funeral notice description of the lover of a deceased gay man--succeeds because it is first of all a love story of warmth, humor and courage.

From the film’s opening sequences we sense clearly that at least some of the men we’re being introduced to will be stricken with AIDS before the film is over. The couples are Allan (Stephen Caffrey), an entertainment attorney nicknamed Fuzzy because of his beard, and Willy (Campbell Scott), a gym instructor; Howard (Patrick Cassidy), a handsome actor who’s just landed a key role on a soap, and Paul (John Dossett), an office worker; and David (Bruce Davison), who’s independently wealthy, and Sean (Mark Lamos), who’s written the soap in which Howard appears. Almost the only woman in the film is Lisa (Mary-Louise Parker), Fuzzy’s longtime friend (and next-door neighbor to Howard and Paul); the other principal figure is Willy’s friend John (Dermot Mulroney).

The superlative cast forms an ensemble, but Davison’s calm, quietly devoted, increasingly mature and selfless David dominates the entire film. “Longtime Companion,” which is theatrical in style, has moments of forgivable preachiness and sentimentality; at those times you wish Lucas and Rene had trusted a bit more in the sheer power of their material. The unsparing depiction of the progressive deterioration of Sean and the unswerving love with which David cares for him says everything about how devastating AIDS is and how heroic the responses to it have been.

Most important, “Longtime Companion” (rated a severe R) emerges as a steadfast affirmation of life in the face of terrible loss.

‘LONGTIME COMPANION’

A Samuel Goldwyn release of an American Playhouse Theatrical Production. Executive producer Lindsay Law. Producer Stan Wlodkowski. Director Norman Rene. Screenplay Craig Lucas. Co-producer Lydia Dean Pilcher. Camera Tony Jannelli. Music Greg DeBelles. Production designer Andrew Jackness. Costumes Walter Hicklin. Film editor Katherine Wenning. With Stephen Caffrey, Patrick Cassidy, Bruce Davison, John Dossett, Mark Lamos, Dermot Mulroney, Mary-Louise Parker, Campbell Scott.

Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian).