5B

The film is a tough, vital lesson in love, valor and compassion.

This is a tale from the front lines, before the disease had a name, through the early days when no one knew for sure how it was transmitted.

It’s conventional, occasionally maudlin docmaking that nonetheless grips the heart exactly when it needs to.

5B is ultimately about survival, and the struggle at its center is undeniably a heartbreaking one. Too often, however, the filmmakers get in the way of their own story.

Haggis and Krauss’s desire to use the ward as a vehicle to tell a much larger and more complex story makes sense. Yet it ultimately takes away from the truly remarkable story they have to tell, a story that may actually be more complex than matters of government policy and public opinion.

Despite a nagging tendency to milk sentiment from wrenching subject matter that requires no manipulation, the film is notable for its admirably inclusive perspective.