'The Normal Heart' HBO TV Movie Review: Mark Ruffalo Shines in Heart-Wrenching Story of 1980s HIV/AIDS Awareness Struggle

We celebrate today new states abolishing the ban on same sex marriage - the next step forward in the civil rights movement for homosexuality in the U.S.A. This is the perfect time for The Normal Heart, a tragic retelling of the early 1980s fight to raise awareness for H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. in the gay community before we even knew what to call the illness. Mark Ruffalo shines in this heart wrenching, graphic HBO original movie opposite Julia Roberts, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Matthew Bomer.

Fire Island in 1981 is a prologue to this struggle, embodying the homosexual culture of the past: hoards of gay men celebrate the liberation and openness of their sexuality, only to have their partying symbolically cut short by an illness - a cancer that is transmitted sexually. As an audience, we know this to be H.I.V. and A.I.D.S., but the characters are calling it "Gay Cancer" while stewing in anxiety, confusion, and fear.

Originally an autobiographical play by Larry Kramer, this is essentially a story of love during the most dangerous time for men to love one another. What would you do if you were told your love could end up killing you?

Ned Weeks (Ruffalo) becomes a somewhat reluctant voice for the diminishing gay community, befriending poster boy Bruce Niles (Kitsch) and falling in love with Felix Turner (Bomer) on his journey. We see love, but we mostly see pain, struggle and conviction.

Weeks takes action, calling out the government whenever he can. He says the illness is intentionally ignored to wipe out homosexuals. Ned starts to blame the straight community, too, but he's hardest on his own community. In his mind, the gay men in the closet are hurting the cause; they're killing themselves.

Ned's tactics are intense, yes, but he truly believes he can make a change. Unfortunately his fear mongering gets him fired, ending his official fight for H.I.V. and A.I.D.S.

Death comes too often in The Normal Heart. We see what A.I.D.S. does to people physically, but the emotional and mental aspects are prevalent on the screen as well. We can't tell you that this TV movie has a happy ending, though we assumed you might have guessed that.

To pick a standout performance in The Normal Heart would be unjust; the entire cast is simply amazing. Ruffalo is at the top of his game for HBO, with Kitsch stealing scenes left and right and monologues from Parsons, Roberts, and Joe Mantello make this an instant classic.

It's hard not to get personally involved with this movie. You can imagine the fear, the confusion and the immense sadness that these men went through just to find out what was going on with themselves. This really happened; we need to know about it.