Beautiful Thing

In this alternately somber and witty coming-of-age drama, a pair of teenage boys growing up in a working-class neighborhood become aware of their homosexuality. Introspective Jamie (Glen Berry) is the son of Sandra (Linda Henry), a tough but warm-hearted barmaid who lives in a public housing block ...more

Although it's a remarkably unself-conscious, non-dogmatic and tender gay love story, the film Beautiful Thing loses something in its translation from the original stage version. South London writer Jonathan Harvey adapted his own play for the screen and enlisted its original stage director, Hettie MacDonald, but in reworking the material for the cinema the pair lose some of its focus and economy. The oppressively static sense of place that was enforced by the cramped, council-flat setting opens ...more