Torch Song Trilogy Details

If there was ever a film to challenge the auteur theory that movies are primarily the work and therefore to the credit of the director then this is it. The driving force behind this splendid gay romantic comedy drama is Harvey Fierstein, who repeats his Tony award-winning stage performance in this screen version of his own hit play. Although it occasionally lapses into soppiness, the script is a finely judged mix of sass and schmaltz. Gravel-voiced, camp and desperately vulnerable, Fierstein is tremendous, while Anne Bancroft does the best of her string of Jewish mama routines. The surprise is Matthew Broderick (back in cinemas from today with Jim Carrey in the intermittently hilarious The Cable Guy), who is perfect, playing against type, as Harvey's lover.

A truncated version of a successful Broadway show, the film loses the theatricality of the original and transforms the material into a dated melodrama.