film\bt

Beautiful Thing is the story of two teenage boys who fall in love and start to come to terms
with their sexuality in a world which finds it hard to understand them.

Jonathan Harvey's screenplay (based on his stageplay which I also directed) is proud and very
funny. His writing has great charm and poignancy but it is never sentimental. It is a story about
the power of love and is rooted in a belief in the human spirit. I think this optimism is central to
the film, and it is wonderful to have the opportunity to show what a beautiful thing the love
between two people can be no matter what sex they are.

I hope the film will help bring encouragement and affirmation to many young people who are
going through the same experience as the two boys. I hope it will bring understanding and
support for them from their friends and families. I hope it will make everyone who sees it feel
that the things they want in life are possible.

This tenderly ironic British celebration of
    gay teen love uses Rodgers and
    Hammerstein's "Sixteen Going on
    Seventeen" and the Mama Cass hit
    "Make Your Own Kind of Music" as the
    background music for kissing scenes
    between a couple of teenage boys.

    It's all done in the innocent style of an
    after-school special - albeit the kind of
    after-school special that only British
    television could sponsor, complete with
    four-letter words and parental figures
    who can be vulgar, criminally abusive and
    style-challenged in their dressing habits.

    Indeed, adolescent Ste (Scott Neal) is so
    tormented by his drunken father that he's
    invited to stay with Jamie (Glen Berry),
    the teenage son of Sandra (Linda Henry),
    a single mother who works at a pub near
    the public-housing project they all live in.
    The boys end up sharing the same bed
    and, though they appear to be opposites,
    they can't deny their attraction to each
    other.

    A talented athlete, Ste is worried about
    being labeled gay, and he has a couple
    of moments of homosexual panic. "He's in
    love," Jamie mischievously explains when
    Linda wonders why Ste is suddenly giving
    him the chilly treatment. Linda thinks he's
    referring to a new girlfriend. Jamie hates
    sports, he knows enough about
    Broadway musicals to tell you who
    played the baroness in the movie of The
    Sound of Music and he's already on the
    verge of coming out. He swipes an issue
    of Gay Times from a newsstand,
    discovers a bar they can visit and takes
    Ste on their first date.

    Meanwhile, Sandra is in the midst of a
    bumpy romance with a hippie painter
    named Tony (Ben Daniels), who spends
    a lot of on-screen time wearing a
    woman's silk dressing gown. Another
    neighbor, the flamboyant Leah (Tameka
    Empson), who suspects that Jamie and
    Ste have become lovers, further
    complicates matters by spreading the
    news.

    Nevertheless, all ends in a fairy-tale
    coming-out finale that could have been
    inspired by Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies,
    in which the closet doors are opened and
    there's same-sex dancing in the streets.

    You may not buy the idea that Ste is no
    longer in danger from his horrendous
    father, or that Jamie's mother could so
    easily adjust to his declaration of sexual
    orientation (she believes gays can always
    retreat to "a Mediterranean island called
    Lesbian"), but the ending is every bit as
    liberating as it's meant to be.

    Beautiful Thing isn't particularly deep,
    nor is it a great piece of filmmaking, but
    it's so sweet-natured and well-acted that
    it's hard to resist. Berry and Neal play
    their love scenes with an intimacy that
    makes their feelings for each other seem
    the most natural thing in their unhappy
    universe. Henry makes Sandra, the most
    fleshed-out character, quite
    three-dimensional in her longing for a
    better job and a more rewarding life for
    her much-bullied son.

    Jonathan Harvey, who based the script
    on his long-running play, has a sneaky
    sense of humor that keeps the material
    from becoming preachy and
    self-conscious. And director Hettie
    Macdonald, who handled the London
    stage productions, knows the characters
    so well that she can't seem to make a
    false move.