The Poll Winner Philadelphia Stirs up Extra Emotions

This review will be a little different than usual, and I hope you'll understand by the end. Normally I go over the story and the characters and different aspects of the film making as best I can from the basic knowledge I have, never having been educated in film. I try to give pros and cons and generally I base my reviews on how much fun I had, or how bored I may have been. I just like to watch movies. It's really no more complicated than that.

Philadelphia won last weeks poll and it held an unexpected mirror into recent events of my own life. This film primarily deals with HIV and gay rights issues, but what struck me was the simple concept of losing someone you love to disease. More after the jump.


More than a week ago now, I came up with the idea for this past week's poll, just off the top of my head. I had just seen The DaVinci Code the week prior and it was simply because Tom Hanks was still on my mind that I chose the topic. It was as simple as that. After looking through his list of films, I picked out a selection that I knew were popular, that I hadn't seen, and opened the poll to you. I had nothing else to do with it from then on.

It was a fairly close race with Joe vs the Volcano and Road to Perdition tying each other for second place, both only 1 vote behind Philadelphia. It was indeed a close race, but fate it seems was in favor of this movie.

You've probably already read Puneet's review in which he goes over the basics of the story. Tom Hanks plays a lawyer who was possibly fired once the executives found out he was gay and has AIDS. Denzel Washington plays his lawyer in the case against his old law firm.

I won't beat around the bush, this is a great movie. Both Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington are great actors and they do a spectacular job here. We are even treated to a little Antonio Banderas as the gay partner to the main character. The story is great, the courtroom drama is well done, and the dialog is often powerful. But even after all that, what hit me the most had to do with the ending, for which I'm going to have to issue SPOILER warnings. From here on, I will be directly referring to events of the ending of Philadelphia. SPOILERS from here on. You have been warned.

Let's talk endings.

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned my process for making the poll which Philadelphia was seemingly fated to win. Now why do I keep bring up fate? "It was just a poll," you may be thinking, "any movie could have won." But it wasn't just any movie. And unbeknownst to me when I made this poll, my grandmother was about to catch a cold that would quickly move to her lungs. Last Tuesday I received a phone call that her situation had grown dire, and the doctors said she was unlikely to last the day.

I dropped everything and headed back to my home town.

Throughout the course of the movie, we witness Tom Hanks' character, Andrew Beckett, grow increasingly ill. Occasionally he seems to improve, but ultimately his condition gets the better of him and he collapses on the floor of the courtroom. After the case is won, we follow Denzel Washington's character, Joe Millar, to the hospital where Andrew is being cared for. This is where everything hit the wall for me, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried for the entirety of this final scene of parallels.

The scene shows Andrew, deathly ill, in bed with an oxygen mask on his face. He's so weak, he needs help to move it so he can talk. When I arrived at the hospital where my grandmother was being cared for, the scene you see in Philadelphia is frightening similar to what I walked into, minus all the joyous family members from winning a lawsuit. The room I walked into had only a few close family members, with my grandmother, deathly ill, in the hospital bed with an oxygen mask on her face. She was unconscious and wasn't waking up. The bed was even on the same side of the room as in the movie. Watching these last few minutes of Philadelphia became like reliving my grandmother's final day.

When Andrew's family, one by one, comes up to him and wishes him well, a few of them say that they'll see him later, but as a movie viewer, I knew they never would. Joe turns to Andrew's partner and says "he's a fighter" and bids him farewell. The doctors at my grandmother's hospital had told us she wouldn't last the day, but we stayed with her, even though she was unconscious the entire time I was there, struggling for every breath. She did last the whole day and late into the night. My father said "she's a fighter." Seeing as there weren't enough chairs to sleep on, I decided to head home to get some rest. I held my grandmother's hand in mine, I kissed her on the head, and I said "I'll see you tomorrow grandma" fearing that I never would.

In the movie Joe is awakened to a phone call from Andrew's partner informing him of Andrew's passing.

At 9am on Wednesday morning, March 23, 2011, I was awoken by a phone call to let me know that I'd never see my grandmother again.

I miss you grandma. Rest in peace.




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