“When you’re in a battle against an enemy so much bigger, so much stronger than you, well, to find out you had a friend you never knew existed, that’s the best feeling in the world.”
Pride is a British movie, directed by Matthew Warchus that premiered in 2014.
The plot of the film is based on a true story that occurred in London and Wales in the years 1984/85. It starts out as the story of the 20-year-old Londoner Joe (George MacKay), who is slowly coming to terms with his homosexuality and therefore joins the Gay Pride London 1984. There he meets a group of new lesbian and gay people, whom he soon becomes close friends with. Joe is one of the few characters in the movie that is actually fictional. He was created to give the audience an access point to the whole story and the actual real life characters in it.
The story takes place during the time of Britain’s great Miner strike under Margaret Thatcher. Since the Miners struggle to keep their strike up, this little group of people found a group called “Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners”, trying to raise money to help the mining communities out.
At first the Miners Union does not want to take the money that was raised for them because they are afraid of the implications that would follow if they were openly associated with a group of gay people. Therefore “Gay and Lesbians Support the Miners” decide to donate their money directly to one of the affected mining villages. They find the little Welsh village Onllwyn and after meeting with the responsible member of the Union they start donating directly to the people of Onllwyn and are, because they have raised so much money for them, even invited to visit.
As can be guessed, a small Welsh village in the early 1980s is not exactly gay friendly, nevertheless most of the people to warm towards the shrill guests from London.
Since it is a BBC movie I was actually going in, fully prepared that it is going to be a dark and absolutely depressing British drama, but was pleasantly surprised. Although dealing with serious topics the film balances incredibly well between comedy and drama. It has got a very light-hearted atmosphere and assembles some of Britain’s finest actors like Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Andrew Scott etc.
Unfortunately it is not in cinemas everywhere, but if you have got the chance please do go and see it, because I can most certainly say that Pride is the most beautiful film I have seen in a very long time.
