99 Words About … The compelling horror of HBO’s ‘The Normal Heart’

It starts out like a party.

Fire Island. Summer. 1981.

Life is great.

Then “gay cancer” shows up and the lesions spread like something out of a horror movie, claiming your loved ones, and nobody seems to care.

That’s the sort of furious indignation behind “The Normal Heart” (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO).

Larry Kramer’s adaptation of his Tony-winning play about the early days of AIDS stars Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts like you’ve never seen them.

They’re so compelling, they make it hard to look away.

Even when you really, really want to.

— CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE