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From the opening scene of a chaotic games lesson in a South London school, Beautiful Thing grounds itself very firmly in a reality that most of us will recognize.
But slowly, with great sensitivity and conviction, it turns away from the themes of disaffection and working class strife into a tale of young love. The difference here is that the young love is blossoming between two mates, Jamie and Ste, and it is a love that dare not speak it's name for fear of violent retribution from the small minded, big mouthed folk who live on the same Thamesmead Estate.
In contrast to so many American movies dealing with homosexuality, Beautiful Thing strives to portray the theme as just that, a very beautiful and momentous emotion. For debutante screenwriter Jonathan Harvey, the film is a long realized dream.
"I always thought that if it got made it would have been shown on Channel Four at half past two on a Sunday morning," he beams. "I'm glad that Film Four have made it though, because as a movie it's so much more specific than it was as a play. I think that can mean it's quite general too, because growing up and falling in love are universal things."
Upon leaving school Harvey trained to be a teacher, and actually taught in the area in which his story is now set, before throwing it all in to write full time. His earliest work showed promise, got him an agent and attachments to such prestigious theatres as The Royal Court and The National. But if the experience of teaching such a rough, tough assortment of inner city teenagers helped with so much of the detail of Beautiful Thing, his own memories of growing up provided much of the story.
"I was always aware that there was a lack of role models for working class gay people on the telly and on film," he continues. "The only images I had were things like Another Country and Maurice, where you had to have a pair of cricket whites to be gay, and even then it was after lights out and a bit kinky. On the flip side of that if you were working class you ended up being kicked out of the house and becoming a rent boy. I just wanted to show something other than that.
"The teaching experience influenced where I set the film, which is the place I used to teach. I just felt I knew more about the teenagers spoke coming from there than I did about teenagers from Liverpool, where I come from, because I hadn't been a teenager there for a long time myself."
Once Beautiful Thing debuted as a play, touring provincial theatres before a successful spell at the Bush Theatre in London, rumours began about turning it into a film. When asked to adapt it himself, Harvey rose to the challenge.
"It was exciting to be able to write the screenplay, because with a play you're quite confined to setting everything inside this box, whereas with a camera you can go wherever you want to. At first I opened it out a lot more, but that became very dull, quite slow, like a long episode of Grange Hill. So I brought it back into a specific place, and found that keeping more of the flavour of the play helped the film."
Another member of the creative team who was thrilled at the chance to be involved with the film was director Hettie MacDonald. A theatre director, she had been involved with the play from its first production and consequently knew it inside out, but frankly admits she had no experience of film-making.
"I'd never even been on a film set before," she confesses, "let alone directed a film. As far as I was concerned it was never a serious question that I would be doing it, of course it was fantastic for Jonathan and I was happy for him, but I only vaguely kept in touch with what was going on. Then, totally out of the blue, [producer] Tony Garnett called me and invited me for a chat. Up until then it had never occurred to me to put myself forward."
Drawing on the strengths that she brought from the theatre, MacDonald was pleased to be surrounded by experienced technicians and a talented cast of unknowns.
"Technically, of course, there was a lot that I didn't know anything about. Each day I was learning, watching the rushes and going back and doing it better the next day. But in terms of working with the actors I learned that they need to do a lot less, although I think it took me about a week to realize that.
"You become aware that your dialog with the actor is about thought, about much more detailed things, about seeing the emotional truth and being really specific about what's going on inside their heads. The camera's an interesting thing, because you can go inside a character's head and then see something four miles away. I found that scope incredibly liberating, that you could be so big and yet so intimate with your actors."
And intimacy, in this film, is very important. From the shared confidences that mates have, to the longing that the sensitive Jamie (Glen Berry) has for his friend Ste (Scott Neal), who himself needs affection and reassurance when he can get away from his brutal father and bullying older brother. It's a situation that could have been exploitative or distasteful, but thanks to the poignant direction, sincere writing and some wonderful performances, it comes across as thoroughly moving cinema.
"It was very difficult casting Glen and Scott," MacDonald adds, "because we wanted boys who were as near as possible to the right age whereas on stage we'd always had actors who were a bit older. I felt this was a chance to really play the boys as they should be. We looked long and hard for people who came from that background, who knew the world of that story, but also who could handle very long, complex emotional roles.
"We made a choice to see people who had some experience, even if they'd just done a little bit on EastEnders or The Bill or whatever, just so that they had at least been in front of a camera before and wouldn't therefore be freaked out by the whole filming process. Then we could concentrate on the emotional complexity of the characters.
"It also helped that the boys knew each other, they had been at Anna Scher's school, which I thought was a great advantage because they already had a relationship which would help you believe that they might be friends who live next door to each other."
If this small but beautifully crafted film proves a success it could mean great things for all involved. But with several plays under his belt now don't expect Jonathan Harvey to be beating a path to Hollywood. His one experience of the place has hardly left him hungry for more.
"I was sent over there for two weeks by the Royal Court Theatre, about two years ago," he recalls. "They put me in this really nice hotel. I'd be picked up every night, taken to see a show about half seven and be back in my room by nine and told not to leave because it was dangerous.
"It all just seemed so plastic and vile. I'd certainly go to New York if I was asked, but I've no ambition to go back to LA," he smiles, masking the obviously grim memory. Pausing, he adds: "But maybe in two years, when I've been offered five million dollars by Paramount, I'll think differently."
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