- Date: 11-16-2024 - Viewed on My Living Room TV - Streamed on the Criterion Channel - 4/5 stars ![[philadelphia.jpg | center | 150]] --- *Now, explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old.* Joe Miller, played by Denzel Washington, says this many times throughout the movie. For me, this movie needs to explain the culture to me like I am a four-year-old. I was born in 2000. The idea of AIDS first becoming an epidemic is not in my mind. One of my significant childhood memories is the day Gay Marriage was legalized across the country. Though I have seen strife among my LGBTQ friends, I have not seen it during a time that LGBTQ Rights were not accepted as they are today. No one I know has had AIDS, nor anyone I know has died of AIDS. These are large roadblocks for myself. My empathy cannot come from my own experiences directly, I am in a later generation that thankfully faces this problem at rarer levels every year. These are all integral experiences that Jonathan Demme is trying to deliver in this movie, though. He is the master of empathy in a lot of his films and that is beyond noticeable in this one. Each time an actor looks straight into the camera to deliver a line, it delivers that emotion like a gut punch. They are talking with the other actors but they are being exacting on us, the viewer. The intense dutch angle in the questioning scene was pleasantly disorienting. Now, I don't know if this is a story that Jonathan Demme needs to tell. His experience seeing the AIDS epidemic secondhand is valid but obviously first hand experience would be a better voice for this movie. Some of the gay men have possibly in-genuine characterization. However, I believe his ability to create empathetic characters and the absolute heart that went into the movie makes it both effective and evergreen. This movie is not perfect, but it is effective. --- #1990s #year1993 #jonathan_demme #drama #courtroom #tom_hanks #denzel_washington #lgbtq #rewatch