Parting Glances

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Parting Glances
Directed by	Bill Sherwood
Produced by	Nancy Greenstein Paul L. Kaplan
Written by	Bill Sherwood
Starring	Richard Ganoung John Bolger Steve Buscemi Adam Nathan Kathy Kinney Patrick Tull
Release date(s)	February 19, 1986
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Parting Glances on VHS

Parting Glances is an American film released in 1986. With its realistic look at urban gay life in the 1980s during the Ronald Reagan era and the height of the AIDS epidemic, many film critics consider it an important movie in the history of gay cinema. It was also one of the first American films to address the AIDS-HIV pandemic. Director Bill Sherwood died of complications due to AIDS in 1990. This is also the first film featuring actor Steve Buscemi.

1 Description
2 Reviews and recognition
3 Footnotes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Description

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story revolves around a gay male couple, Robert and Michael, who are in their late twenties and live in New York City. Robert (John Bolger) is about to leave for two years on a work assignment in Africa while his partner Michael (Richard Ganoung) stays behind. Michael's ex-boyfriend Nick (Steve Buscemi), for whom Michael cooks meals, looks after, and is still in love with, has AIDS.

Parting Glances takes place during a two-day period, with many of the scenes at a farewell party for Robert hosted by the couple's friend Joan (Kathy Kinney) and at a dinner party hosted by Robert's employer Cecil (Patrick Tull) and his wife Betty (Yolande Bavan); the two have an unconventional marriage.

While classified as a drama, the film also contains many comedic moments. Critics have praised the movie's witty, realistic dialogue and detailed evocation of gay and gay-friendly urbanites in 1980s Manhattan. Parting Glances was also one of the first motion pictures to deal frankly and realistically with the subject of AIDS and the impact of the then relatively-new disease on the gay community.

[edit] Reviews and recognition

Parting Glances gave Steve Buscemi his first major movie role. "It is to both his and the film's credit," wrote Janet Maslin in her New York Times review, "that the anguish of AIDS is presented as part of a larger social fabric, understood in context, and never in a maudlin light."^[1]

In 2006, the UCLA Film and Television Archive announced the film's restoration and addition to its Outfest Legacy Project.