‘Rise’ offers powerful history of gay rights
But the miniseries tries to cover too much ground
Good intentions and a strong start can only get you so far. Unfortunately for ABC’s overly ambitious When We
Rise (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9,
out of four), *** those virtues are not enough to sustain the miniseries’ entire run. But goodness: Scattered within this history of the battle for gay rights are moments of great power and lessons of great importance as it pays homage to a struggle that too frequently has been ignored by mainstream television — and has yet to be fully won.
Written in large part by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black ( Milk), this sprawling miniseries follows the modern gay rights movement from its post- Stonewall birth in the early 1970s to today. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and Rise trries to do so by telling its story through three real-life heroes of the movement.
We meet Cleve Jones (Guy Pearce), founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt (whose book is the basis for Rise), as a teen (Austin P. McKenzie) right before he moves to San Francisco to escape his father (David Hyde Pierce).
There he meets Ken Jones, an African-American sailor, and Roma Guy, a feminist activist — played by Jonathan Majors and
Fun Home’s Emily Skeggs, sensational in their first major television roles. Each struggles to accept their sexuality, but they all come into their own: Cleve as an aide to Harvey Milk, the openly gay politician; Roma as the founder of a women’s center; and Ken as a strong and good man.
For the first two installments, we follow the ebb and flow of their efforts: a successful battle against a particularly heinous initiative is undercut by Milk’s assassination, and the sexual freedom of the late ’70s is lost forever in the cataclysm of AIDS. These are Rise’s best, most concise episodes, yet even they fall prey to an “and then this happened” narrative, distracting cameos and a rushed pace.
Still, the greatest problems land when the show jumps to the ’90s and the younger actors are replaced by Pearce, Mary-Louise Parker (Roma), Rachel Griffiths (Roma’s partner Diane), and Michael K. Williams (Ken). You’d expect to be in good hands with so many fine actors, yet the transition is jarring and unconvincing.
While following three real people lends credibility to the series, it also ties Rise to three now-diverging lives, including addiction, family squabbles, homelessness, romantic complications and a fight for universal health care. Perhaps it is all “one struggle, one fight” — but it still feels like at least one fight too many.
Still, there is so much here that’s worthy of sharing, and so much that no one else has tried to cover in a comprehensive fashion. And this isn’t a hagiography shot through rainbow-colored glasses: We see the divisive racism and sexism in the gay community that has often hampered its progress.
It is, however, a movie with a clear point of view. For some viewers, the “gay” part may feel new. But what you’re really getting from the American Broadcasting Company is the American view of civil rights: The belief that none of us is secure in our rights until we all are.
And we all rise.