(Image via 1985)

Director Yen Tan's 1985 is a painfully fleeting remembrance of a time when HIV was a death sentence, one that often left its victims too fearful to reach out for help, even to their own families.

Cory Michael Smith is Adrian, a young man who returns to his small hometown in Texas to see his family for what he thinks could be the last time. He has already lost the love of his life to AIDS, and while he can still pass for well, he feels himself losing ground under the surface.

Home is no save haven; his parents (Michael Chiklis and Virginia Madsen) are deeply religious, going so far as to ban pop music for Adrian's brother Andrew (Aidan Langford), calling it impure. The forbidden bonds Adrian and Andrew, including a passion for newcomer Madonna and an ability to keep secrets. Adrian does not tell Andrew in so many words that he suspects they're more alike than Andrew has yet guessed, but the brothers connect in a way Adrian feels he never could with his parents.

When his mom suggests he look up his old best friend Carly (Jamie Chung), she seems to be trying to fix him up, but Adrian had already planned to see Carly, to apologize for leaving their friendship behind and to say goodbye.

Once Adrian has had meaningful exchanges with each of the people from his past, he will return to the big city and his fate.

Smith, the heart of the film, throws off genuine sparks opposite Chung, whose Carly must get over feeling abandoned, then rejected and then being told someone who has been so special to her never trusted her enough to reveal to her his true self. He's also quite good in scenes with Madsen, who has a grace to her performance that mesmerizes, leaving the audience unprepared for her surprising character trajectory.

I wanted to love 1985, but I felt the film's embrace of simplicity — spare frames, black-and-white film, a script about AIDS that wouldn't have felt out of place had it been shot during the first burst of AIDS-themed movies 30-plus years ago — was too thorough, leading to a slightly robotic quality in spots. Also, the script takes the easy way out in several ways when it comes to Adrian's parents' behavior and to religion, which struck me as being more fantasy than reality.

Still, there is a sincerity to the project that draws focus, Chung is gutsy from hello to goodbye and Tan manages in one scene — using music and a fragile, flickering visual — to put on film the best representation of a generation of gay men lost to AIDS that I've ever seen.

1985 is at NewFest. It opens Friday, October 26, in NYC and L.A.