I saw a British gay version of "16 Candles" or "Pretty
In Pink" (think Molly Ringwald lusting after the prettiest,
richest guy in high school).
"Get Real" is based on a play and is set in a suburban
English town where the high school kids wear blue jackets and
ties (boys & girls). Steve is small, witty, picked upon by
the soccer jocks, and is going through angst over dealing with
being gay.
He and Jeff, the BMOC, a soccor star destined for Oxford, fall in
love. Most of the movie is about the tentativeness of two kids
dealing with puppy love and coming out and fear of people finding
out that, psst... they're gay.
No new ground broken here. But I enjoyed it, having sat through
my share of straight movies like this (as a young man) and having
to re-interpret all the characters for my own fantasies. Of
course, Get Real is a fantasy, unlike life.
There is a sub-theme, of the anger and violence just below the
surface. It's easy to tease that violence out to only gay kids,
and that's not true. Adolescence is full of boys who like to beat
up other kids.
But is also a reality. I remember, back in the mid-80s, seeing an
original play in Austin that was based on straight boys picking a
guy up at a bar and taking him out in the country and torturing
him. It was a terribly written play, overdramatic, maudlin. But
the the threat of that kind of violence is real (as seen by the
number of such deaths in Texas that have taken place since I saw
that silly play).
Get Real handled that well enough, perhaps better than could ever
be expected. If you can handle teenagers in love, you might enjoy
this movie which had a R rating (despite the fact that it always
went to black out for the you know what scenes, did include a few
let's kiss scenes, and one butt shot of the BMOC the next morning
after their first night together. Raunchy stuff -- not.
