Why Aris Still Matters in a Movie That Got a Lot Right
Aris is the gay best friend character in the 1996 film adaptation of The First Wives Club, played by Dan Hedaya. He's the interior designer who helps transform Annie's look after her divorce, and his storyline involves him dying from AIDS-related illness. Most people who saw the film remember him fondly as the voice of reason and style in a group of women falling apart. Less remembered is how the movie actually handled his death, which was pretty radical for a mainstream comedy at the time. I rented this movie on VHS in 1996 from a Blockbuster downtown. The rental store had a section for "Women's films" and one for "Comedies," and this thing sat squarely in neither. The box had a bright pink border with all three leads smiling on it. I remember thinking it looked like a normal popcorn movie until about halfway through when Aris gets sick and the tone shifts. It stayed like that for the rest of the runtime. The shift wasn't jarring, exactly, but it was noticeable. That kind of tonal flexibility is unusual for studio comedies of the mid-90s, especially ones marketed primarily toward women.
Unraveling The Mystery Of Aris Fate In First Wives Club A Deep Dive Into The Cult Classic
The question people keep asking isn't really about plot. It's about why the movie gave Aris so much screen time and emotional weight for what amounts to a supporting role. In the original 1992 novel by Alan Cummins, the character doesn't exist at all. The film added him. That's a significant creative decision that most casual viewers miss when they're watching for Goldie Hawn's physical comedy or Bette Midler's performance. The writing for Aris comes from Neil Simon, who adapted the screenplay. Simon had written extensively about gay characters before this, but there's something different here that takes another viewing to notice. Aris isn't a joke. He's not defined by his sexuality in a comedic way, which was the standard approach in 90s Hollywood. His humor comes from his personality and his taste. The few lines that reference his gay identity are used to establish his confidence, not to make the straight characters or the audience laugh at him. This was genuinely unusual in 1996. His illness storyline hits differently now than it did then. When the movie came out, AIDS was still heavily stigmatized in mainstream media. Most films either ignored it entirely or treated it as a tragedy to be whispered about. First Wives Club treats it matter-of-factly. Aris gets sick, he dies, and the other characters grieve him like they'd grieve any friend. There's no special scene where they hold their breath. There's no moralizing monologue about the disease. He just dies and they're sad. That normalcy was the point.
One detail that doesn't get enough credit: the scene where Aris's funeral is interrupted by the three women's personal drama is actually pretty sharp writing. They're dealing with their own grief while also navigating their messy lives. It mirrors real funerals, where grief and awkwardness and mundane problems all happen at once. That kind of honesty is what makes the movie hold up. The casting choice also matters more than it gets discussed. Dan Hedaya was primarily known for playing tough guys and mobsters in roles like Goodfellas and The Godfather Part III. Casting him as a flamboyant, stylish gay man who gives emotional support to women going through divorce was a deliberate subversion of his established screen persona. It wasn't typecasting in the usual sense. It was a calculated risk that paid off because Hedaya played it completely straight, never leaning into camp, never making Aris a caricature. The performance works because it refuses to wink at the audience. There's a common misconception that Aris exists solely to be the fashionable confidant. He has his own life outside the main trio. He has a partner named Brent, and their relationship is shown in a few quick scenes that establish he's loved and had a life before the illness. The film doesn't spend time on this, but it's there if you're paying attention. That restraint is both a strength and a weakness. The movie could have done more with Brent's character, and it probably should have. Instead, Brent becomes background, which means Aris's personal relationships feel underdeveloped by modern standards. That's a fair criticism.
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From a production standpoint, the Aris storyline required a complete rethinking of the novel's ending. In the book, there's no equivalent character. The movie needed someone to die to raise the emotional stakes for the revenge plot. A close friend dying gives the women motivation beyond just getting even with their ex-husbands. It adds weight. Without Aris's death, the third act loses a lot of its emotional foundation. The film makes that connection explicit when Elise says something along the lines of living fully because life is short, and Aris's death is the catalyst for that realization. Here's something most people overlook. The movie was a box office success, grossing about $146 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. But its real legacy is in how it influenced the female friendship genre that followed. Girls Just Want to Have Fun came earlier, Thelma & Louise was different in tone, but The First Wives Club created a template for ensemble female comedies that dealt with adult problems. Movies like Something's Got to Give (which wasn't completed) and later shows like Girls and Even Women Who Chase After Men can trace a line back through this film. Aris's character is part of why that template worked, because he showed that gay male characters in female-centered stories didn't have to be comic relief. The soundtrack also plays a bigger role in Aris's storyline than it does for anyone else. When he dies, the music shifts from the upbeat disco numbers that score most of the film into something more somber. The transition is subtle but deliberate. The filmmakers understood that sound design carries emotional weight even in a comedy. That attention to detail is what separates this from a typical crowd-pleaser.
If you're watching this now and wondering whether the AIDS representation holds up, the answer is mostly yes with caveats. It was progressive for its time but dated in its approach. The film never addresses how Aris contracted the virus, which some viewers read as either responsible ambiguity or willful ignorance depending on your perspective. In 1996, the ambiguity was probably a studio requirement. The MPAA and test audiences weren't ready for explicit discussion. The film navigates around the question rather than ignoring it entirely, which is a reasonable compromise given the era. The DVD extras for this movie are sparse. The special features on most home video releases don't include much analysis of the creative choices behind Aris's character. There are interviews with the director and the leads, but they rarely discuss why they added him or how the story changed from the source material. That's unfortunate because the adaptation decisions are where the movie's real craft shows. The theatrical trailers don't mention Aris at all, which tells you that the marketing team didn't think the gay subplot would sell tickets to the target demographic. They were wrong, obviously, since the movie succeeded, but it's telling that the promotional material treated the character as an afterthought. There's a scene in the second act where Aris helps Annie pick out an outfit for her revenge dinner. This moment is often cited as one of the funniest in the film, but it's also one of the most emotionally complex. Annie is grieving her marriage while simultaneously wanting to humiliate her husband. Aris understands both impulses without judgment. He's not there to fix her or give her advice. He's there to help her look good while she figures out what she wants to do. That dynamic is genuinely healthy and it's rare in cinema, especially for a 90s release.
The film's cultural reevaluation over the years has been positive. It started as a commercial hit and faded into video rental memory. Streaming platforms brought it back into conversation, and social media commentary has kept it alive. The Aris storyline, in particular, gets more appreciation now than it did upon release. Contemporary critics have called out how the original reviews largely ignored his character or dismissed him as comic relief, which wasn't accurate. He was central to the emotional architecture of the film from the moment he appeared. I've seen fan edits and YouTube videos that focus specifically on Aris's scenes, splicing them together to create a retrospective that highlights his importance. The most popular ones run around eight minutes and get decent engagement. It's a small but consistent signal that audiences want more recognition for how the movie handled its supporting characters. The sequel, The First Wives Club II, was a direct-to-video release that came out in 2009. Aris doesn't appear because the character had died in the first film. The sequel is widely regarded as inferior for multiple reasons, but the absence of Aris is noticeable. His death gave the original film its emotional grounding. Without him, the sequel is just a bunch of women being annoying to each other without the underlying stakes that made the first one work.
Alan Cummins, the author of the source novel, has commented publicly about the adaptation choices. He acknowledged that adding Aris was the right call, even though it meant deviating significantly from his book. In interviews, he noted that the novel was lighter in tone and that the film needed a character with that kind of gravity to anchor its darker moments. His assessment aligns with what most viewers experience: the movie is better for having Aris in it, even though he wasn't in the original story. There's a practical note about watching this film today. Some scenes play differently in 2024 than they did in 1996, particularly around language and social attitudes. The Aris storyline holds up remarkably well, but other elements of the film, especially jokes about age and appearance, feel dated. This doesn't diminish the quality of the movie overall, but it's worth noting for anyone approaching it for the first time. The core emotional truth of the Aris storyline remains intact regardless of how the surrounding context may age. The script's handling of grief is arguably the most impressive aspect of the Aris storyline. Most comedies treat death as a punchline or avoid it entirely. First Wives Club allows its characters to be sad while also being funny, which is how grief actually works. They laugh at funerals. They say inappropriate things. They argue about logistics while feeling devastated. The film captures this with specificity that many dramas fail to achieve. It's easy to take for granted when you're watching it in one sitting, but the authenticity of those moments is what makes the movie worth returning to.
