Andrew Beckett Was Perhaps Tom Hanks' Bravest Performance

Photo: TriStar Pictures

by Julian Spivey
 
Today is Tom Hanks' 67th birthday.

Sometime late in my high school tenure, I became addicted to consuming as many great movies as I could. I don't know why this happened. It's like a switch just flipped and all of a sudden I was like: "Hitchcock! John Ford! James Stewart! More! More! More!"

My brothers and I used to talk on the phone to our grandparents every Sunday morning. Grandma would ask us about our week and if we did anything interesting or exciting. I told her of the movies I'd see that week - the most recent had been Jonathan Demme's 1993 legal drama "Philadelphia" starring Tom Hanks as attorney Andrew Beckett.

Beckett is a senior associate at Philadelphia's largest corporate law firm and has concealed his homosexuality and the fact that he's an AIDS patient. He's eventually fired. He believes it to be because of AIDS discrimination.

It's a powerful movie and performance by Hanks, who would win his first of back-to-back Best Actor Oscars (along with "Forrest Gump") for it. If you've never seen it you definitely should - it's streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

My grandmother told me Hanks was one of her favorite actors, but she hated "Philadelphia." She didn't think it was a film I should be watching. Hanks played heroes to her, just not Andrew Beckett. She recommended "Saving Private Ryan." The horrors and violence of war were much more appropriate in her eyes than gay people and a disease that tore through its community.
Andrew Beckett was perhaps Hanks’ bravest performance.

Even as a teenager, I knew my grandmother was wrong.

I grew less and less interested in those calls.

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