Movie Review – Torch Song Trilogy

Torch Song Trilogy (1988) – The screen adaptation of Harvey Fierstein‘s Tony awarding play of the same name.  Arnold Beckoff (Fierstein) is a female impersonator who is desperately seeking love.  Fierstein draws heavily on his own life for this warm and touching story. Arnold struggles with his family’s issues, his own insecurity, the issues that come with the men in his life.  The story is told in three parts (originally three short plays).  The cast includes Anne Bancroft as Ma Beckoff and Matthew Broderick reprising his stage role as Alan.

This is a powerful and deeply emotional masterpiece by Fierstein.  He wrote the original stage plays and the screenplay as well.  He walks a variety of tightropes here.  There are times when he speaks directly to the audience then retreats behind the fourth wall.  The balance of humor, anger, angst, confusion, lust and love is handled masterfully.  It would have been easy to slip into stereotype or cliche but the material clearly means too much to the author to allow that to happen. Obviously it’s Fierstein’s show from beginning to end (he’s on screen through nearly the entire movie) but the climactic scenes between Arnold and his mother are riveting.  A lifetime of pain and anger erupt in those final two scenes.  Kudos that there’s no cop out to a Hollywood ending here.

The subject of the movie, the homosexual community and especially the drag queen sub-culture, will make some people uncomfortable.  Yet that is the subject of the movie, the lack of comfort that can be found on all sides.  Arnold is comfortable with the idea that he is a gay man but knows that he and his family have not found a comfortable place on that subject.  Other characters continue to struggle with the issues that surround their sexuality and society’s reaction to it.  There was a lot of pain to be express in 1988.  Sadly, a lot of that pain still exists.

In the end this is a master work of character and writing.  The cast makes the most of what they’re given.  It’s well worth whatever discomfort the audience may have to walk with Arnold through this trilogy.

Rating – **** Recommended