Roush Review: ‘Sin’ Celebrates Life & Love Amid Death During the AIDS Crisis
Review
There’s not a moment to waste in It’s a Sin, Russell T Davies’ (Queer as Folk) tragicomic coming-of-age miniseries set amid an epidemic from another time: the 1980s AIDS crisis, which claimed so many young lives. In five brisk and often devastating episodes (all available at once on HBO Max) that encompass that fateful decade, Davies whips between outrageous scenes of hedonistic raunch and humor and stark moments of confusion, sorrow and terror.
Early defiance and ignorance of a mystery illness making headlines in the U.S. leave London’s gay community vulnerable to homophobic indifference and hostility. Patients find themselves isolated, shunned, treated like prisoners with contempt and neglect, with too few brave enough to fight for their right to live or die with dignity. The real sin in It’s a Sin is the shame and stigma they faced in their suffering.
The center of Sin‘s universe is the Pink Palace, a bustling London flat occupied by aspiring actor Ritchie (a vibrant Olly Alexander), who’s closeted to his suburban family (including Keeley Hawes as his clueless mom) on the Isle of Wight while living it up in the big city. His roomies include the flamboyant Roscoe (Omari Douglas), whose clandestine entanglements put him close to the corridors of U.K. power, and shy and naive Colin (Callum Scott Howells) from South Wales, who gets a glimpse of what a “normal” gay relationship looks like when invited into the domestic home of his Savile Row co-worker (Neil Patrick Harris in a sublime and moving cameo).
Completing the circle of friends is everyone’s BFF Jill (Lydia West), who’s among the first to realize, “We’ve got this great big killer disease and it’s happening in silence.” She becomes their rock and advocate in bad times, which when they arrive are heartbreaking in the extinguishing of these vivid characters’ hopes and dreams.
Not that they’re all unblemished heroes. Ritchie in particular frustrates Jill, and by extension the viewer, by his hypocritical refusal to get tested and face his fears until it’s almost too late. And yet he speaks for his peers as he reflects on life before the killer virus: “What people will forget [was] that it was so much fun.”
It’s a Sin, Limited Series Premiere, Thursday, February 18, HBO Max
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My brother was only the 2nd HIV patient our local general hospital had. MUCH fear and mistrust among the staff. His partner stayed with him for weeks and literally provided for his day to day needs. In the course of doing so, he figured out ways to help him, including having the kitchen puree his meals so he could be fed with a feeding syringe, which ending up being the protocol for quite a while until it was deemed a choking hazard, and was stopped. The 2 of them ended up being quite friendly with the staff as people began to understand the Aids disease better. When my brother died of pneumosistis 3 1/2 years later at the age of 34, several of his former nurses came to the viewing and several came to the funeral. A couple had even kept in touch with his partner after he passed. A classic example of how getting to KNOW people as normal, every-day people caught by an insidious, previously-unknown killer and know the enemy, in this case which iwas HIV-Aids. This can dispel much myth and see the victims as real humans dealing with one of the worst nightmares of their life, and battling the unknowns, along with medical staff and the general public, our two families among them. We were blessed with 2 cherished and deeply loved people who were taken in the prime of their life.
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