TIMOTHY Conigrave’s 1994 memoir Holding The Man is an Australian literary classic and the stage version by Tommy Murphy, originally mounted by Sydney’s Griffin Theatre, is one of the most successful Aussie plays ever.
Not what you’d expect for a gay tear-jerker about love in the age of AIDS, but the story of Conigrave’s relationship with John Caleo, who met as high school students at Xavier College in Melbourne in 1976, is a story with wide appeal.
The film adaptation stars Ryan Corr as Conigrave, who’s acting in a school production of Romeo And Juliet when he befriends Caleo (Craig Stott), a star of the school’s AFL team.
Their attraction is instant, but star-crossed when Caleo’s father (Anthony LaPaglia) discovers the relationship is more than friendship.
Ryan Corr as John Conigrave and his lover John Caleo, played by Craig Stott. Source: Supplied
Flash-forwards show us Caleo and Conigrave still together during university years, and the latter moving to Sydney to study at NIDA, where Geoffrey Rush’s acting teacher chides him for performances lacking in masculinity.
But by then the shadow of HIV has fallen and the couple has to face some hard facts. This is the second stab at directing a movie by theatre great Neil Armfield, whose Candy, starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, failed to make the story of two Sydney junkies appealing or profound. Holding The Man is a much, much better film, full of humour and humanity and with an honest approach to sex. Period-appropriate pop songs are deployed with dramatic effectiveness.
Guy Pearce and Kerry Fox in a scene from Holding the Man. Source: Supplied
A gesture by Conigrave’s father towards his son at a wedding will put a lump in the throat of many.
“Will you marry me?” Conigrave asked Caleo back in the ’70s, in a scene that will resonate loudly for many of today’s audiences.
Given the barriers that the two of them ultimately faced because they weren’t married, this very sad film hits home with the force of a rebuke.
Opens Thursday
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