As a member of the improv group the Comedy Knights, one of the games we do is called "Oscar Moment", a dig at the clips they show on the Academy Awards ceremony to encapsulate an actor's performance in a specific movie. The year that Tom Hanks was nominated for Philadelphia, the producers showed his "Red Light scene", where Hanks's character is transported, even if only temporarily, to another time and place when he hears a Maria Callas aria. It's an interesting scene, one which I even studied in a Music and Cinema class in university, with interesting interpretations. If the rest of the picture had been as meaty as this Oscar Moment scene, maybe I would have liked it more.
Instead, Philadelphia plays more like a game of viewer tolerance, leaping from stock character to stock character without ever really developping any one person specifically and certainly not saying a whole lot about AIDS, workplace discrimination, or any other issue for that matter. Like the Denzel Washington character who has his own misconceptions about the illness, the film looks at serious topics but doesn't want to touch them.
You have to give director Jonathan Demme credit though: even in 1993 when it was released, AIDS had yet to be given the Hollywood treatment, and for the most part the picture is uninvasive, providing a good starting point for other like movies to follow. The problem is that the already existing material on the topic (Terrence McNally's stage play Love! Valour! Compassion!, the TV movie Citizen Cohn, and Tony Kushner's award-winning Angels in America saga come to mind) was so provocative, revolutionary and creative, that Philadelphia comes off as a rather cookie cutter approach in comparison.
Hanks plays Andrew Beckett, a recently promoted lawyer who suspects his boss (Jason Robards, go figure) may have fired him after catching a glimpse of lesions on Beckett's face. While suspicions he has AIDS are correct, Andrew decides to enlist the help of fellow lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to sue the firm for wrongful dismissal. Anti-climactic courtroom scenes comprise the second half of the picture. While the dialogue is, in places, sharp and textured, there are utterly forgettable supporting turns by Joanne Woodward, Obba Babatundé, Antonio Banderas, and Mary Steenburgen. Demme's lackluster direction (complete with Denzel's face-to-the-camera vs. Tom's face-to-the camera à la Silence of the Lambs) doesn't help matters any. And the outcome? Will Andrew win a settlement against the Evil Prejudiced Firm? I'll give you one guess.
There are moments when Philadelphia rises above its Hollywood limitations, including an interesting scene when Banderas and Hanks attend a Hallowe'en party, but the further along the picture goes, the more blanks it fires. The conclusion, though quasi-sad, plays more like a dramatic tragedy strangely devoid of any actual drama. The intentions are noble though, and the movie certainly gives the subject matter an affectionate and passable college try.
