Before Night Falls

"Before Night Falls" tells the true story of homosexual poet and writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem), living at a time and in a nation openly hostile to gays. His native Cuba, its sights, sounds and smells, provides the story's backdrop. Arenas leads a tumultuous life, including a stint with Castro's insurgents. He carries on a troubled and ongoing affair with the well-to-do Pepe (Andrea di Stefano). When he finally escapes Cuba as part of the Mariel boat lift in 1980, it is after years spent in prisons there, where he managed to write a novel. In New York, he befriends a hapless soulmate, Lazaro Gomez Carriles (Johnny Depp). Suffering with AIDS and unable to get medical treatment, Arenas commits suicide, ten years after arriving in the U. S.