YMMV / Holding the Man

• Harsher in Hindsight: The movie begins with Tim panicking over not remembering where John sat during a dinner party with Tim's girl friends from drama club in high school. It becomes harsher as the movie progresses because John was already dead during that time and Tim was having gradual memory loss as part of AIDS complication. He was most likely afraid he could die at any moment before finishing his memoir, justifying his earlier panic.
• Tear Jerker: Tim and John's life after moving to Sydney is chock full of this.
  • Not long after they moved to Sydney after Tim graduated from drama school, they were diagnosed with AIDS, pretty much erasing their chance of finally having happy life together after separated for so long.
  • The moment Tim realized he was the one who infected John with AIDS and that he had been infected long before they moved to Sydney, possibly infecting John when they were still in college. He was genuinely devastated for it. When he talked to his mother about this, he said the situation felt like killing the man he loved.
  • In Christmas holiday, John and Tim had their private moment in hospital to celebrate Christmas because John had to be readmitted after collapsing and having respiratory arrest. During present exchange, John said out of the blue that he was very close to death before he was resuscitated and he felt "easy to let go." When John asked Tim if the latter was okay with the former saying that, Tim paused, trying to show he accepted it by nodding before tears fell on his cheek and admitted he wasn't ready to let go of him.
  • Tim's last line in the movie and the book.
    Tim: "You're a hole in my life. A black hole. Anything I place there cannot be returned. I miss you terribly.
    Ci vedremo lassu, angelo.^note roughly translates to "We'll see each other up there, angel.""
    • A real kicker to this is Tim died ten days after finishing the book, as if writing it was the only thing keeping him alive.