Genre: Drama/Tragedy
Director: Anton Corbijn
Writer: H.G. Hansen
Based on the novel by Hanya Yanagihara
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Michael Ealy, Titus Burgess, Craig T. Nelson, Ellen Burstyn, Alan Cumming, Paul Bettany
Plot: The movie follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly in Jude (Cillian Murphy), a lawyer with a mysterious past and unexplained health issues. Jude walks with a limp and suffers from severe nerve damage in his spine that causes him great pain, which he blames on an car injury he sustained as a child.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, he also habitually self-harms. The rest of the group includes Malcolm (Michael Ealy), a struggling architect from a wealthy biracial family who still lives at home; JB (Titus Burgess), a painter of Haitian descent; and Willem (Chris Evans), an aspiring actor whom Jude is closest with due to their both being orphans. After graduation, Jude and Willem share a one-bedroom apartment due to their relative poverty compared to their friends.
Despite this apparent closeness with his friends, Jude finds himself unable to divulge either details of his past or current state of mind to his roommate. Nonetheless, he thrives in his law practice and develops a close parent-child relationship with his former professor, Harold (Craig T. Nelson), and his wife Julia (Ellen Burstyn), which results in the pair adopting him when Jude turns thirty. While thankful, the time before the adoption is filled with further bouts of self-harm as Jude believes he is inherently unworthy of affection. Meanwhile, the rest of the group finds success in their respective fields, with Willem becoming a star of theater and then film. JB finds success as an artist but also becomes addicted to crystal meth. The group stages an intervention, where JB mocks Jude by doing a crude imitation of his limp. In spite of successful treatment and a great deal of apologizing, Jude finds it impossible to forgive JB. Willem refuses to forgive him too, causing the group to fragment, with only Malcolm remaining friends with all four members.
It becomes clear that Jude was sexually traumatized at a very young age, making it difficult for him to engage in romantic relationships. His friends and loved ones begin questioning this isolation as he enters his forties, with Willem especially being baffled with regards to Jude's sexuality. As his loneliness grows more intense, he enters an abusive relationship with fashion executive Caleb (Alan Cumming), who is disgusted by Jude's limp and his increasing use of a wheelchair. Jude finally breaks off the relationship after Caleb rapes him, and they meet a final time when Caleb follows him to a dinner with Harold, humiliates him, and then follows Jude to his apartment where he brutally beats and rapes him, leaving him for dead. Jude nonetheless refuses to report the incident to the police, believing he deserved it. Only Harold and Andy, Jude's doctor and ongoing confidante, know the truth of the failed relationship.
Although Jude's body manages to heal, the rapes cause him to flashback to his childhood wherein he was raised in a monastery and repeatedly sexually abused by the brothers. He recalls a period when one of the brothers, Brother Luke, ran away with him, forcing him into years of child prostitution. After he was rescued by the police, Jude was placed in state care, where the abuse continued at the hands of the counselors there. After the break-up with Caleb brings back this childhood trauma, Jude finally decides to kill himself, but is unsuccessful. In the aftermath, Willem comes back home and begins to live with him. Jude continues to refuse therapy but begins to tell Willem the least traumatic stories about his childhood, which Willem finds disturbing and horrifying. The two soon begin a relationship, but Jude continues to struggle with opening up, and does not enjoy having sex with him.
In an attempt to curb his cutting, Jude decides to instead burn himself as a form of self-harm, but accidentally inflicts a third degree burn that requires a skin graft. The wound is so severe that Andy tells him he has to tell Willem what happened, or else he will do it for him. Before Jude can tell Willem, Andy accidentally divulges the information. Willem is horrified, but after a difficult fight, Jude finally confesses that he does not enjoy sex and tells Willem about the years of sexual and physical abuse he endured. He also reveals that the damage to his legs was caused by a man called Dr. Traylor (Paul Bettany), who picked him up after he ran away from state care at age 15 and held him captive, eventually running him over with his car.
The relationship continues, with Willem sleeping with women and not with Jude. The two settle into a comfortable life together, which is shaken when Jude's legs become worse, and he must reluctantly amputate. He manages to learn to walk again with his new prosthetics, and the pair enters a period of their life which Willem dubs "The Happy Years". However, while picking up Malcolm and his wife from the train station for a visit, Willem is involved in a car accident with a drunk driver which kills all three occupants. With his two closest friends dead, Jude descends once again into self-destructive habits, losing such an excessive amount of weight that his remaining loved ones stage another intervention. Though they are able to get him to gain weight and to attend therapy, years of depression and despair finally overtake him and he commits suicide.
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