Holding the Man

Based on a true story; this is a touching and moving story of a couple of young Australian men who fall in love as youngsters in the days before there was any AIDS awareness. Ryan Corr ("Tim") and Craig Matthew Scott ("Tom") are superb as they act out their joyous loving relationship (complete with it's obligatory ups and downs) and then have to face the fact that, 15 years later, one has become terminally ill. We share the traumatic journey, poignantly told as they both try to reconcile themselves to the inevitable. Guy Pearce and Geoffrey Rush star too and Anthony LaPaglia and Camilla Ah Kin play "John"'s parents sensitively - their grief compounded by their perception of the blame lying on his "choices". It is raw and at times horrible to watch - the decline is pretty full-on but none the less watchable and engrossing for that. It's seems odd now that this was an unstoppable disease, but for many of us who were young in the 1970s and 1980s this was just how it happened. The lack of legal status of the partner in the whole process is sickening but thankfully, for many, long changed for the better.