It was directed by John Erman, from the Emmy Award-winning teleplay written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman (story by Sherman Yellen).

Aidan Quinn stars as Michael Pierson, a Chicago attorney who goes home to break the news that he is gay and has AIDS to his parents, played by Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands.

At home, he receives another piece of disturbing news: his lover, Peter (D. W. Moffett), confesses that he had sex outside the relationship because Michael is a workaholic and is living in the closet.

Michael's father, Nick (Ben Gazzara), is a lumber company owner, and his wife, Kate (Gena Rowlands), is a former concert pianist, housewife, and grandmother.

The teleplay for the film by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman spent two years in development and underwent at least thirteen rewrites before the Standards and Practices division at the network accepted it for airing.

The film was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards and won three, including Outstanding Writing For a Movie or Miniseries for Cowen and Lipman for their teleplay.

The film conveyed the prejudices surrounding HIV/AIDS at the time and the then common limited understanding by the general public of the methods of transmission and likelihood of infection.