The New York Times - November 11, 1985
John J. O'Connor

Written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, from a story by Sherman Yellin, "An Early Frost" tells of a young Chicago lawyer, Michael Pierson (Aidan Quinn), who discovers that he has AIDS. Going home to New England, he is forced to tell his parents (Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara) not only about the disease but also about his homosexuality. His mother is distressed but supportive. His sister (Sydney Walsh), who had known for years about his homosexuality, suddenly does not want him near her children. His grandmother (Sylvia Sidney) is afraid only that he may die before her. His father is furious, telling Michael that he has become a stranger in his house.

The scene is thus set for the kind of family drama that has become a specialty of the television-movie form. In at least every other scene, tears can be found welling in the eyes of the performers. And, as usual, the setting is a comfortable white, middle-class enclave set in a suburban version of "Our Town." Still, a few productions manage to transcend the cliches. "An Early Frost," directed by John Erman, is certainly one.

Played with unflagging sensitivity and emotional candor by Mr. Quinn ("Desperately Seeking Susan" and the upcoming stage production of Sam Shepherd's "Lie of the Mind"), Michael copes convincingly with his own particular circumstances. He has not been promiscuous and is understandably bitter when his lover of two years (D. W. Moffett) admits to having had a couple of passing outside sexual contacts. At home, Michael has to adjust to accepting not only himself but also the world around him, including the ambulance drivers who refuse to take him to the hospital during an emergency.

The film's most powerful and convincing moments take place in the hospital when Michael is forced to meet other AIDS victims, particularly a flamboyant "queen" type whose only weapon against the disease is his sense of humor. Played to a virtuosic turn by John Glover, the hysterical and shrewd Victor can announce, with a wicked glance at the annoyed Michael, "It's getting almost impossible to put together a dinner party these days." The viewer does not get to see Michael in the latter stages of his disease, but the sight of Victor's few possessions being dumped in a garbage bag makes a point that is memorably vivid.

Produced by Perry Lafferty, "An Early Frost" treads delicately around a difficult subject and makes its case for love and understanding with quiet conviction. The single moment of the grandmother's insisting on kissing her troubled grandson makes an important point far more effectively than a month of breathless newscasts. And the cast is exceptionally good. Miss Rowlands uses her distinctively solid presence to create a touchingly vulnerable portrait, and Mr. Gazzara is powerful as a man fighting his own inner passions. Mr. Moffett, who played the AIDS victim in the play "The Normal Heart," offers an affecting study of unapologetic pride as Michael's lover.

In recent weeks, the subject of AIDS has been given other prime-time treatments. A Sunday episode of "Trapper John, M.D." on CBS offered, without fanfare, a good deal of practical information woven into a story about a nurse and her former boyfriend, who turns out to have the disease. And on the situation comedy "Brothers," carried by pay-cable's Showtime, the victim was a black football player, whose condition prompts a condemnation of society's blind or uncaring institutions.

The danger, of course, is that AIDS will end up being exploited all over the television entertainment spectrum as the fashionable "disease of the season." For the moment, however, the problem can use all of the reasonably sympathetic attention it can get.

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