Ruined by the try-hard dramatics towards the end

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Those scenes are cringe-worthy indeed, and I have to say the segment with Julia Roberts tossing her papers brought out a chuckle from me. On the other hand, had this 1985 play been made into a movie before 2014, they wouldn't have seemed quite so ridiculous. This movie is arriving too late to strike a chord with most viewers. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not.

It might help to know that this was meant to be a polemic - a 'call to action'. The characters sometimes got angry because they are conveying the rage that the Larry Kramer felt at the time of the AIDS crisis.

The airplane scene, the "give me $3,000 to give you the ashes" scene and julia roberts venting like a 5 year old were truly horrible scenes.

Well they are highly dramatic scenes, but the thing is those things happened. I lived through the AIDS epidemic from the 80s to today, which is why I'm still involved with the Pgh AIDS Task Force. Our anger was palpable at the loss of friend after friend month after month year after year while the government seemed indifferent. Anyone I know who lived through those days reacts to scenes like these personally. I can't watch these scenes without bursting into tears. We really felt we were living in wartime, and it seemed no one cared.