'Ain't that a kick in the rubber parts?'

I was born, raised, and lived in New York City until I was forty, and I saw a lot of Broadway shows, but it has always been one of my great regrets that I never saw Harvey Fierstein's monumental play TORCH SONG TRILOGY, which he both wrote and starred in. So when I saw that a film version had been made, and wonder of wonders it starred Fierstein, I rushed out to see it. And I was not disappointed.

In the interim I had read the play. On the stage, TST was an experimental piece with minimal sets, lots of overlapping dialogue (something that works well on the stage but is hard to do on film), and a running time of nearly four hours. So when I saw that the film's running time was just two hours, I prepared myself for a hack job. But Fierstein himself adapted his own play to the screen; I should have known better. The end result is, you might say, a "compressed" version of the play: Fierstein made a good many judicious cuts in the dialogue, leaving only the choicest bits, and the finished product shines like a well-cut diamond.

TST tells the story of ten years in the life of Arnold Beckoff (Fierstein), a female impersonator in New York City with a romantic nature; surrounded by men looking for sex, Arnold is looking for love, and it can be cold out there in the big city.

Yet he does find love, and more than once. The first time in the person of a *bisexual* schoolteacher named Ed Reese (winningly played by Brian Kerwin), who ultimately can't make up his mind which bed he wants to sleep in. Ed isn't a bad guy, but he is terrified of being gay and tries desperately to make a life with his girlfriend Laurel (Karen Young in a brilliant, funny-sad performance), in the end succeeding only in hurting both Laurel and Arnold, who drops him.

Arnold's next love interest literally falls into his lap. Onstage at the club, Arnold is heckled by a bunch of young men who are very drunk, and one of them, upon being confronted, responds by passing out. Arnold takes him home to sleep it off. The young man, by name Alan Simon, barely out of his teens, is brilliantly played here by the indecently beautiful Matthew Broderick. Looking down at the sleeping boy, Arnold says, "If you have an IQ of over 30, then there is no God." When Alan awakens Arnold serves him breakfast, gives him directions to the subway, and locks himself in the bathroom until the kid leaves. But what he does not know is that Alan has developed a huge crush on Arnold, and he pursues him quite openly until Arnold's defenses crumble.

Arnold's love life goes on with more than its share of triumphs and tragedies. Running on a parallel track is his relationship with his mother (Anne Bancroft, sensational as always), on the surface your typical New York Jewish Mother who hovers over her kids and has a gift for laying on the guilt. But there is more to her than that. Arnold loves her and is frustrated by her in equal measure; she has never accepted him for who he is and constantly makes references to the mythical *wife* he will *someday* have.

Arnold's journey of love and loss and reconciliation climaxes with a final confrontation with his mother in which he finally lays down the law: "There's nothing I need from anyone except for love and respect and anyone who can't give me those two things has no place in my life!"

Condensing a four hour play into a two hour movie seems an impossible task, but Fierstein and Company pull it off brilliantly, and the end product is a warm and winning film, often funny and sometimes tragic, but always real. And the best part is that Hollywood did not insist on putting a name star in the lead. The part was written by Fierstein for Fierstein because on some level Arnold IS Harvey, and it's perfect for his rubbery, funny face which reflects every emotion he feels, and while he starts out considering himself somewhat less than attractive, by the end of the film, he has gained considerable dignity and is almost handsome.

A joy to watch from start to finish.

Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
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