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October 1996
 
| Glen Berry and Scott Neal play two boys of very different character who manage to fall in love with each other. |
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Normality has finally arrived in gay-themed films and films featuring gay characters. And it's already possible to distinguish, inside this false genre, several tendencies according to the filmmaker´s intentions. Described as a hybrid of Kean Loach and Mike Leigh´s styles, "Beautiful Thing" is a British comedy which received very good reviews in Cannes 96, and was also shown in San Sebastian.
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| Beautiful Thing is the film version of Jonathan Harvey´s stageplay, who´s also written the screenplay. Director Hettie MacDonald describes her film debut as the story of two adolescents - two boys who fall in love with each other and finally assume their sexuality in a society that's not ready to understand them. It´s a story that speaks of the power of love. It´s source comes from a deep faith in the human soul. I think this optimism is essential. It´s great to show how beautiful the love between two people can be, no matter what sex they are. |
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The main characters are Jamie Gangel (Glen Berry), a teenager who hates sports and school, but loves old movies and his neighbour Ste (Scott Neal), good looking and athletic, but abused by his father and brother. The spark ignites between these two boys from Thamesmead, south of London. Sandra, Jamie´s mother, played by Linda Henry; Leah (Tameka Empson), a 16 year old high school drop-out, and Sandra´s neohippy boyfriend (Ben Daniels), are the other characters in this play which first appeared on stage in 1994. Jonathan Harvey´s plays are always entrenched with a sense of humour. The last play from this British author, Boom Bang-a-Bang, still playing during the shooting of Beautiful Thing, deals with a bunch of friends who get together to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. |
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THE GAY IMAGE
Beautiful Thing is the theatrical equivalent of a whoop of joy, or doing 100 on the motorway with the radio blasting, said the critic of The Guardian after a performance of the play. According to Jonathan Harvey, It´s a happy story, because you can be gay and happy, you can be working-class and accept homosexuality. When I was small, the only images I really had of gay people were those conceited private school boys in cricket jumpers taking each other punting on the river, or the working-class boys who got kicked out and ended up working as rent boys. It´s not about what you get up to after lights out, it´s about falling in love.
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Glen Berry and Scott Neal, both pupils of the Anna Scher Theatre School, actors of the popular series Eastenders and longtime friends, were chosen for the main characters because of their natural charm and their acting talent, in addition to their being familiar with the world that surrounds these characters, according to Hettie MacDonald. Ben Daniels (Fourth Protocol, If You Were Here) is the actor with the most film experience among a cast primarily of television and stage actors. This film takes place among Mama Cass´ songs, big concrete blocks and classrooms; a film that doesn´t fit the gay tragic image. Its motto is:Do what you want to do, don´t listen to anyone else! |
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Hettie MacDonald
(Director)
She studied English in Bristol University before joining the Royal Court Theatre in 1985 as a production´s unpaid trainee. She directed plays such as: Who´s afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Midsummer´s Night Dream, The Plague Year, Heartgame, Shamrock and Crocodiles, and Talking in Tongues. Beautiful Thing is her first film.
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The main couple attunes even in their colors.
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