Pride-2014

Director-Matthew Warchus

Starring-Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton

Scott’s Review #215

Reviewed January 17, 2015

Grade: B-

Pride, based on a true story, deserves props for delivering a nice message about inclusion and groups of vastly different people coming together as human beings, but while it is a nice film, the filmmakers play it a bit too safe and it has a definite formulaic feel to it.

Surely, the real story of Pride was not as simplistic as this film felt at times.

The setting is 1984 England where a group of British miners goes on strike in a dispute over wages. A group named Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners made up of gay men and women develop an interest in the strike and decide to help the miners and families.

Why they decide to take on this cause is not fully explained- they just do. The National Union of Mineworkers is hesitant to accept funds as they worry about the publicity caused by a group thought to be perverts.

The film is certainly riddled with clichés- the macho miners resist the help from the gays- many of whom are portrayed as effeminate. The characters who are lesbians look as though the filmmakers wanted to “butch them up”, thereby overdoing the stereotype.

There is a subplot of one gay young man who has not come out to his parents- a well-to-do, pretentious couple. When inevitably the truth is revealed, the parents are angry and turn their backs on the teen. He leaves home to join the gays and lesbians who accept him into their lives with open arms.

The prudish, female head of the committee is homophobic and vows to do everything in her power to make sure the gay and lesbian group does not succeed in aligning with the miners.

These clichés seemed way overdone for the sake of making the film more dramatic. Some of the characters, therefore, come across as one-dimensional.

Even the story revolving around a character with AIDS seems watered down and soft.

On the plus side, the casting of the brilliant Imelda Staunton as the sympathetic, maternal, Hefina is a plus.

A huge supporter of gays and lesbians she comically befriends all of them and is curious about their lifestyles. Bill Nighy is also excellent as Cliff, the older miner who turns out to be gay himself.

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, is presented as greedy and selfish with little regard or use for the miners or labor unions.

Pride is an earnest, sentimental, feel-good film that deserves adoration for the coming together of different communities.

I would have liked to see more risks taken by the film to perhaps obtain a darker edge to it.