“Pride” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Instead, it pins its hopes on the touching ways that the spirit of solidarity can transcend fear and bigotry. Ashton died of AIDS in 1987.)Īlthough the miners were ultimately defeated in the strike, the movie, which begins and ends with gay pride parades a year apart, refuses to accept that defeat. “Pride” makes little of the schism, and it draws the line at portraying the ravages of H.I.V., which infects at least one group member. But the Londoners continue their campaign and adopt “Pits and Perverts” as the name of a lucrative fund-raising concert featuring the gay dance-pop trio Bronski Beat.Ĭomplicating the story is the AIDS epidemic, which begins diverting the attention of the gay activists. An article sneeringly headlined “Pits and Perverts” rains ridicule on the alliance and embarrasses the miners enough for them to discourage further gay support.
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Various degrees of antigay sentiment are expressed by the miners, yet the movie refuses to demonize anyone except Maureen (Lisa Palfrey), an intractably homophobic miner’s wife who leaks the news of the coalition to a tabloid. The union side includes Hefina (Imelda Staunton), a gung-ho, unflappable organizer who enthusiastically welcomes the gay contingent, and Cliff (Bill Nighy), the union’s polite, haltingly shy secretary. The gay supporters, besides Mark and Jonathan, include Jonathan’s lover, Gethin (Andrew Scott), who grew up in Wales, fled to London and hasn’t been home since, and Joe (George MacKay), a shy, semi-closeted college student. Stephen Beresford’s evenhanded screenplay has a lot of ground to cover and more characters than it can comfortably handle, but it manages to humanize almost everyone.
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“Pride,” unlike “The Full Monty,” isn’t a comedy, but laughs are harvested from the collision of macho working-class miners in South Wales and young Londoners, mostly male, who gather at a gay bookstore. That film tradition was revived in the late 1990s with “The Full Monty,” a celebration of working-class ingenuity in which six unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield form a striptease act to raise money.
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In a TV clip, Thatcher is shown baring her teeth in a feral smile, her eyes gleaming, as she vows to crush the National Union of Mineworkers.
But the enemy here, the conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is within rather than without. “Pride” is a descendant of morale-boosting British World War II movies that celebrated people pulling together in hard times. The movie accentuates the positive without descending into mawkish sentimentality, although here and there it comes close. Directed by Matthew Warchus (“Matilda the Musical”), it is the kind of hearty, blunt-force drama with softened edges that leaves audiences applauding and teary-eyed.Ĭontributing to its appeal are that the story is based on actual, though little-known, events that its heroes and villains are clear-cut and that its tone is resolutely upbeat but not pie-in-the-sky feel-good. More recently, a director like Céline Sciamma constructed a bracing picture of an intimate female relationship with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” though looking back at her career, she’s long explored the nuances of female sexuality.įrom the 20th Century up until just this past year with Sweden’s Best International Feature Oscar submission “And Then We Danced,” below is a sampling of some of the best international LGBTQ cinema out there - including alternative entries from popular filmmakers you may have missed.The classic union anthem “Solidarity Forever,” sung by Pete Seeger, introduces “Pride,” a stirring film about the uneasy coalition of British mineworkers and gay and lesbian activists during a labor strike in the mid-1980s. It has been updated on March 15, 2022.Īmerican movies and TV are making major strides in LGBTQ representation, but storytellers abroad are in many ways ahead of the curve, exploring sexuality and relationships with groundbreaking technique, and in ways often coded and ahead of their time.įrom Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Pier Paolo Pasolini, the fluidity of human sexuality has long fascinated international filmmakers unafraid to bust taboos. Editor’s Note: This list was originally posted on February 27, 2021.