Holding the Man: An Australian favorite

Set in Australia during the aids epidemic, Holding the Man was released in 2015 as an artistic homage to the struggles LGBTQ men endured in times past. It’s a stark reminder of how widespread and devastating the epidemic was and just how far we’ve come today. 

Holding the Man is the story of Tim (Ryan Corr) and John (Craig Stott) who meet in high school at an all-boys private school in Melbourne. They are each other’s first love, during a time when coming out as gay wasn’t something socially accepted by everyone everywhere. Tim’s parents try and stop him from seeing John, and John’s parents attempt the same. However, in the end, separating the boys proves impossible and they embark on a journey together which takes them both to their very end.

The story doesn’t stay rooted in high school tales for too long, and soon enough the boys are on their way to university. They continue to explore each other, and their community, and during uni, they build a community of queer folks around themselves. Their families clearly still struggle to accept their respective sexualities, but this doesn’t stop John and Tim from forging ahead together. They’re known in their circle of friends as the “married couple” despite the fact that they’re so young. 

John seems perfectly settled in their relationship, but as they charge into their adult lives together, Tim certainly seems to have a wandering eye. John is the only person he has ever been with, and while it’s obvious he does love the man, he is curious about what it might be like to be with someone else. A fact which he does not hide well from John. 

When Tim gets into drama school in Sydney, he suggests a separation while he is there. John is hurt and unhappy with the prospect, but it seems he has no choice in the matter. John stays in Melbourne (at least initially) and Tim goes to Sydney and both do their thing. 

While they are both out sowing their wild oats, the aids epidemic is raging through the world, and Australia, despite its distance from literally everywhere else, was not left out of that equation. 

They reunite, and John moves to Sydney to be with Tim, and then before you even know what’s happening, they’re both testing positive for the virus. Things go downhill pretty darn fast. 

At first, it looks like John is the one who infected Tim, but as the storyline unfolds, who infected who first becomes a much more ambiguous issue. 

John gets extremely sick and is unable to care for himself. He winds up in hospital care and his family comes to Sydney. People start making arrangements for his death around him, and it’s clear he isn’t going to live for long. Like most aids-related deaths in the 80s and early 90s, his death isn’t easy. He dies in his bed, gasping for air, his body unable to cope any longer. 

And while viewers know that Tim is also sick, as John is dying, Tim does an excellent job of holding everything together. In the wake of his death, however, well that is a different story. After John dies, Holding the Man sees Tim head to Europe to find John’s familial hometown. He finishes his book about his relationship with John, and then ten days later, almost as if he had to hold on and get this done first, Tim then dies as well. 

Holding the Man does a spectacular job of conveying the complexities of real, honest, true love. Despite the fact that they both ended up sleeping with other people and contracting a virus that eventually took both their lives, it’s undeniable that these two men loved each other deeply. They were each other’s first love, and definitely each other’s last. More than likely, they were also probably each other’s only love. They stood together in the face of injustice in society, in the fact of homophobia, and anyone that tried to belittle them and other them for who they loved, and that included each other’s families. 

Holding the Man also captures the juxtaposing social conditions of Australia at that time. The late 80s and the 90s were a time when queer people unapologetically claimed their spaces, claimed their right to love and started demanding their place in society. For a while, this was a struggle that is well documented in this movie. Tim and John took their lives into their own hands and adopted the mentality that anyone who had a problem with the fact that they were in love, was not of their concern. They didn’t let homophobia keep them from living, and loving, the way they wanted. It was this approach to this struggle, which Tim and John’s generation battled against, that is largely responsible for the freer society Australian LGBTQ folks enjoy today. 

Finally, Holding the Man is a somber reminder of the harsh realities and the struggles generations before us endured. Both Tim and John were very young when the virus took their lives, and both died in their very early thirties. This part of LGBTQ history is so important, and films like this are always uncomfortable to watch. However, watch them, we must. 

If you’re up for a good cry, and a poignant piece of LGBTQ history, definitely give Holding the Man a look-in. It is regarded as one of the most important LGBTQ films to ever come out of Australia, and it’s a gentle reminder that it doesn’t matter where you lived in the 80s: no part of the globe was left untouched by this virus.

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Featuring an all-star Australian cast full of veteran actors from the region, Holding the Man is available to stream on Prime Video now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!