Saturday 20 September 2014

Pride 2014

The year is 1984. The place is Thatcher's Britain. While the lesbian and gay community campaigns for its rights in London, a whole other community of Welsh miners is on strike to demand its rights. Pride is based on the true incidents over a 12-month period where the LGBT community took to campaigning for the Welsh miners, who for the longest time did not embrace this support, and were ever so slowly, and only partially, won over. It is a story of strength and courage, of faith and friendship.

This is one of the sweetest films I have seen in a long time. While it takes turns to poke fun at the 'gays', the Welsh, the miners, the elderly, and everyone else, it manages to get the audience to laugh 'with them and not at them'. And without ever getting overly soppy, it tells a touching, emotional story. Masses of credit goes to the director, Matthew Warchus, and writer Stephen Beresford, for putting together a perfect package.

And every performance is excellent, whether it is by the comparatively lesser known Ben Schnetzer, Freddie Fox, Joseph Gilgun, George Mackay, Andrew Scott or the more famous Dominic West, Paddy Considine, Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton.

In a year of some excellent British films, this is my absolute favourite. Very highly recommended.