Yen Tan’s wonderful, heartbreaking drama revisits the year of the title, a moment when Back to the Future was in cinemas and US president Ronald Reagan finally acknowledged the existence of AIDS. Shot in sumptuous black-and-white, the award-winning 1985 follows Adrian (Cory Michael Smith), a young New Yorker, who returns to his small Texas hometown to visit with his family for Christmas. Adrian, we come to realise, has returned home to tell his family that he has AIDS. Yen Tan’s powerful, original film eschews grandstanding and seeks out an aching poignancy in the smallest details and dramatic ironies. Madsen and Chiklis have seldom been better and, with Cory Michael Smith in the central role, the viewer feels every beat of Adrian’s broken heart.

Source: The Irish Times February 08, 2019 04:52 UTC