The Boys in the Band (2020)

Directed by: Joe Mantello | 121 minutes | drama | Actors: Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells, Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesus, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington, Tuc Watkins

New York, 1968. Michael in his thirties throws a party for a small group of friends in his apartment. That entire group of friends consists of homosexuals, something you had better keep hidden in the 60s. The guest of honor is the cynical Harold, the birthday boy of the evening. Other guest is Allen, a heterosexual acquaintance of Michael’s who knows nothing about it and who shows up uninvited. As the booze flows and the conversations get spiky, Michael decides it’s time for a game. A cruel game.

‘The Boys in the Band’ is a film adaptation of the play of the same name from 1968. Its origin is obvious. With the exception of a few separate fragments, we are in a single location and the dialogues play the main role. As so often in plays, alcohol plays the role of an emotional booster and a depressant of inhibitions. Main character Michael also has an evil drink, which contributes to the derailment of the party.

The first half hour ‘The Boys in the Band’ is a bit of a slog. The clichés (which may not have had that status in the 1960s) are flying around you. The mutual bites, the oversexed jokes, the effeminate dance, the promiscuity, the emphasis on external beauty and the aversion to any form of ugliness. These are all superficial matters, which unintentionally give the impression that we are dealing with superficial characters.

Fortunately, that changes in the second part. Then the conversations become more serious and the characters turn out to be more tragic and less superficial than expected. Then you notice that much of the cat stems from self-loathing and an apparent refusal to accept themselves (and therefore each other) as homosexual. In the second part, the actors are given the space to excel. With Jim Parsons (‘The Big Bang Theory’) leading the way, followed by Zachary Quinto (‘Star Trek’) and Matt Bomer (‘The Sinner’).

Although ‘The Boys in the Band’ is slightly dated – especially the sneaky stuff is fairly passé – the play still manages to captivate. The humor is pretty terrible, but the serious dialogue, the verbal fights and the underlying tragedy are timeless. Because in the end ‘The Boys in the Band’ is about eternal things like love, friendship and acceptance. And about the forced solidarity of social exiles.