Pride-2014

Director Matthew Warchus

Starring Dominic West, Ben Schnetzer

Scott’s Review #215

Reviewed January 17, 2015

Grade: B-

Pride (2014), 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.

While it’s 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 wasn’t as simplistic as this film felt at times.

The setting is 1984 England. A group of British miners goes on strike over wages.

A group called Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, made up of gay men and women, became interested in the strike and decided to help the miners and their families.

Why they decided to take on this cause is not fully explained. The National Union of Mineworkers hesitates to accept funds because it fears the publicity a group thought to be perverts would bring.

The film is 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 the truth inevitably comes out, 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 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 too overdone to make the film more dramatic. As a result, some characters come across as one-dimensional.

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

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

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.

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

Pride (2014) is an earnest, sentimental, feel-good film that deserves adoration for bringing different communities together.

I would have liked to see the film take more risks.