Beautiful Thing

A film set on a housing estate in southeast London. Jamie is sixteen. He lives with his mother and hates football at school. Sandra runs a bar. She is raising him alone, works hard, and has a younger boyfriend. Ste lives next door. The same age; his father and brother beat him regularly. One night Ste is taken in. They sleep in the same bed. From there the film is a story of approach. School, the street, the balcony, and one evening after another. Leah is on the other side. A girl who was expelled; she sits on the balcony, plays Mama Cass constantly, and sings along. That music is a layer inside the narrative. The lyrics comment on the scenes. Sandra works out by degrees what her son is going through. Her reaction is not the expected one. She is surprised, then angry, then she picks a side. What the narrative is interested in is not sexuality but a neighbourhood: its idea is that these two boys are trying to hide something in a building where everyone hears everything, and that there is nowhere to hide it. The violence is real. Ste's situation is the narrative's heavy side and the film does not soften it. The tone is bright even so. The narrative does not tie the ending to darkness, and that is unusual among comparable films of the period. The last scene takes place in the open and is wholly symbolic. The source is Jonathan Harvey's stage play; he wrote the screenplay himself. The production is small and the locations are real; it was shot in Thamesmead. Glen Berry, Scott Neal, Linda Henry, Tameka Empson and Ben Daniels are in the cast. Hettie Macdonald directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1990s British social realism and stories of first love. Who it is not for: anyone looking for structure; the narrative is loose and some side lines are left half-finished.