An Early Frost

first the acting....Aidan Quinn was apre heath ledger winner...both tackled the gay roles with finesse and ability. Gena rowlands her eyes gave some of the best emotions of the film. and the gay dude in the hospital so real even my straight brother felt for him. what a great movie full of love and pain. while it teaches us to be safe with our sex lives...it makes us realize how much life is fragile. i saw it 10 years in intervals and i remembered how the music score had touched me and how much...for its time this movie was important to all and ahead of its time. miss Sidney also was a cool grandma...and Ben gazzara....really got our hearts pounding. never to be forgotten.

It's hard to believe that 'An Early Frost' was made for TV in 1985. I watched it for the first time on 11 November 2008 - 23 years after it was released - and I found it surprisingly fresh and enduring. Although it's an important historic record of the early response to AIDS (and for that reason alone is worth watching) it's more an exploration of family love and courage. The script is well-written, production values are high and the acting is uniformly excellent. Sylvia Sidney won a Golden Globe for her part as the grandmother, but the other main actors including Aidan Quinn (as the young man suffering from AIDS), Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands (playing his parents) are all excellent. A very rewarding experience.

Eight years before "Philadelphia" Aidan Quinn starred in this groundbreaking film about AIDS. Even though this was "Made for TV", it is superbly done. Gena Rowlands is wonderful (as usual). Some might think that this film is dated, however, sometimes it is good to look back to see the way things were in the past to face the future.

An Early Frost was by far superior. It was done gently without insulting or preaching to the audience. It was one of those movies that helped explain homosexuality and AIDS to the audience without being angry. Of course, Aidan Quinn does a beautiful job in his role as the young homosexual. It is heartbreaking movie. I love Gena Rowlands as the understanding mother. Movies like this made you think about the subject of homosexuality and AIDs in a time when we lost the legendary Rock Hudson who was openly gay in Hollywood but closeted to the rest of us who didn't know anything about. Movies like this were when television movies could have rivaled the cinema industry. They don't make many films with sensitivity. HOmosexuality has become a long running joke and AIDS has new victims like women and children. It's a shame that they don't make movies like this anymore. AIDS affects everybody not just family and friends.

This 1985 TV Movie, was early for it's time in bringing out the truth of the "gay" disease of A.I.D.S. It showed great courage and sensitivity in it's telling the story of a young gay attorney, played with incredible honesty by Aidan Quinn, who comes down with the illness and must proceed to tell his parents, played with equal honesty by Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara of his lifestyle let alone that he is sick.

This is a must see film. It still holds up in it's approach to not only tell the story but educate us as to the disease and how it can affect those around us. It was written by Ron Cowen (QUEER AS FOLK writer and SUMMERTREE) and Daniel Lipman and well directed by John Erman. Also in this astounding cast are Sylvia Sidney, one of her last appearances, as the Grandmother who is not afraid to hold and love her grandson, D.W. Moffett, prior to his CROSSING JORDAN TV series, as the lover to Quinn who might have given him the disease through a disloyal tryst in the baths, Sydney Walsh as the pregnant sister afraid to touch her brother for fear he might infect her unborn child. Don't worry she eventually comes around to his side and John Glover, that underrated actor, LOVE VALOUR COMPASSION, as a man dying of the disease whom Quinn befriends in the hospital. Glover looks so much like the dying man he portrays, it's frightening.

This film seemed to be a labor of love for certainly all the actors were giving such dedicated performances. And some of the moments were so real you felt it in your heart. This is one of Quinn's early performances before he went on to do such films as LEGENDS OF THE FALL. He brings gentleness and sensitivity to the role. I'd like to see him do the story of Montgomery Clift one day as he reminds me of Clift's style of acting. The relationship between Quinn and Moffett was well played and not stereotyped. The scene when Quinn tells his parents his disease was brilliant. You could feel in their not saying a word what was going on in their hearts.

A beautiful film, ahead of it's time, brilliantly presented with such an accomplished roster of performers, director and writers.