Beautiful Thing

"Jamie" (Glen Berry) lives with his single-parent mum "Sandra" (Linda Henry) on a London housing estate. He's a slight lad who is prone to bullying at school which leads him to skive off now and again to go home and watch musicals on the telly. Next door is his schoolmate "Ste" (Scott Neal) who has a pretty torrid time of his own with a father and brother who thinking nothing of knocking him about. The lads start to bond and are soon firm friends whose relationship could be starting to burgeon into something more... This film has a distinct charm about it. Sure, maybe it's a wee bit stereotypical at times, but there are strong efforts from Neal, Berry, especially Henry and from Ben Daniels as her love interest "Tony" - who appears to be little better than a dope smoking idler initially, but who is actually rather more than that. It addresses issues of brutality, parenthood and pride - but somehow you just know that there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel and by choosing this ostensibly hostile location for the setting, that light becomes all the more potent as our story develops. It's clearly been done on a budget, the production is a bit on the basic side - but this is a story about character - the strengths and depth of it - and it moves along well and quite powerfully for an engaging ninety minutes.