Review by Ash Baker
The Boys in the Band is not a musical. There’s music, there’s dance, and there’s plenty of color, but there’s no singing – and there’s no happy ending. Joe Mantello revived Matt Crowley’s 1968 play in 2018 for its fiftieth anniversary, and then adapted the play to release fifty years after the original 1970 adaptation, which was directed by William Friedkin.
For those concerned about the loyalty to the original, fear not. Mantello’s adaptation is quite close, with few additions that attempt to make it feel more like a movie rather than a filmed play. One can expect the same lines, the same tempo, the same drama, the same old dance moves. It seems the biggest change Mantello made was by including a cast of openly gay men.
The story surrounds a group of gay friends who gather for a birthday party at Michael (Jim Parsons)’s Greenwich Village apartment; the party is for Harold (Zachary Quinto), the last to arrive.
The guests at the party include Donald (Matt Bomer), Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington), Emory (Robin de Jesus), Larry (Andrew Rannells) and Hank (Tuc Watkins), and lastly, Cowboy Tex (Charlie Carver). There’s a surprise guest on the way, though: Michael’s possibly-gay but violently homophobic ex-college roommate Alan (Brian Hutchinson), who has called in a bit of a crisis.
Though the trailer makes this movie seem like another pastel-colored puff party Ryan Murphy has generously shat onto Netflix, it begins petty and bitchy, and it ends downright cruel. The tone shifts and mood swings are steep and deep, with turns that are sometimes hard to anticipate.
Michael lets himself get drunk after staying sober for five weeks, and matters only get worse from there. He says around the midpoint of the movie, “Not all faggots bump themselves off at the end of the story.” It’s a wonder no one does at the end of this one, based on the sadistic “game” that Michael forces all his guests to play – calling the one person they’ve ever truly loved, and telling him that they loved him.
Bernard is distraught and shaken by the experience, says that Michael stripped him of his dignity. The game causes Larry and Hank’s domestic tension to rise to the surface. Michael spills secrets about Alan’s past in college, all of which he denies.
Matt Crowley’s play was no doubt “groundbreaking” in 1968, the year before Stonewall, and Friedkin’s movie is widely considered a classic in the Queer Cinema cannon. It’s worth noting that the 2020 adaptation is pretty to look at – shiny and flamboyant like all Ryan Murphy productions – and that the performances are wonderful. It’s beautifully cast, both in respect to the previous adaptation and to the characters themselves.
However, I question the agency of this adaptation. In an interview with Backstage, Mantello admits he “had enormous questions about [reviving the story].” But after guidance from producer Ryan Murphy, he decided not to “worry so much about the [time] period.” This same article calls The Boys in the Band “a time capsule of a dark period for LGBTQ+ Americans.” So, why open the time capsule now?
What seems to be the emotional highpoint for the protagonist is a dark moment when he cowers on the floor and repeats over and over through tears to his friend, “If only we didn’t hate ourselves so much.” Perhaps this is the honesty that was desperately needed in 1968 – a recognition that coming out is hard, even after you’ve come out. That when you live in a world that hates you, it’s really hard not to hate yourself, too. But I rarely think it’s the general message needed in 2020.
I don’t mean to say that there aren’t people who won’t still resonate with this message, or that there aren’t still plenty of places in this United States that hate any semblance of LGBT existence. There’s a reason I myself am still closeted.
However, working under the assumption LGBT people hate themselves feels transgressive, maybe even harmful, in the modern day. Not only that, but here we are in 2020, fighting through a second Civil Rights Movement. Black trans women are still killed by the handfuls every year. Murphy and Mantello have delivered the same tired story of cis gay men projecting their self hate on one another, and have not even opted to remove the racially charged jokes and the use of the N-word.
What is more sacred? A fifty-year-old play and its groundbreaking adaptation, or the new ground that could be made? Why repeat old work when you could make new strides? Why not risk truly adapting Crowley’s play for the sake of those young LGBT people who don’t hate themselves? Take out the N-word and other cruelties. Give us something new. Alan can still be closeted, or whatever he is. Larry and Hank can still have their domestic drama. Cowboy Tex can still be a beloved himbo and Donald can always remain gorgeous. Hell, make it an actual musical – what’ll it lose?