BEDSIDE VIGIL Davison comforts Scott

Everett Collection

Longtime Companion

WHO'S IN IT Stephen Caffrey, Bruce Davison, Campbell Scott, Patrick Cassidy

DIRECTED BY Norman René

WHAT IT'S ABOUT A group of friends must come to terms with the ''gay plague'' striking almost everyone they know and love in the early '80s.

WHAT WE SAID THEN '''Longtime Companion' presents the onslaught of AIDS as a series of increasingly ominous rituals, from the anxious reading of newspaper reports to the funerals that come to seem more and more inevitable. The film gives us an intimate view of those who are stricken and those who can do little but stand by and watch them deteriorate.'' B+ -- Owen Gleiberman