* * *
Running time: 110 mins
Rental: Today
Review: Ewan McDonald
Stop me if you've heard this idea before. In a town full of middle-class respectability, a group of teenagers are growing up and meeting life. There's 16-year-old Steven Carter (Ben Silverstone), odd-boy-out at the high school; his plump best friend and neighbour
Linda (Charlotte Brittain); rich-kid John Dixon (Brad Gorton), the sports star and object of every schoolgirl's dreams; his girl, Christina, a blond who models for the local mail-order catalogue. Then there's Jessica (Stacy A. Hart), the school magazine editor, who really wants to go out with Steven.
Sound like just another American teen sexcom, the sort of thing with Drew Barrymore or Sarah Michelle Gellar or Reese Witherspoon that opens every Thursday down at the suburban multiplex?
Well, yes, it is about the shy outsider who gets off with the most popular boy in class. But (a) it's British and (b) Steven is gay. He has known he is gay since he was 11. He keeps it a secret because in his school you can be beaten up for being gay. The only person he tells is Linda.
Hanging out at a local park and gay meeting-spot one day, Steven runs into John, and is surprised to find they are both there for the same reason. Guess who's soon going out with the most popular boy in school?
The relationship is difficult for John. He's attracted to Steven, then runs away and comes creeping back. At one point he beats up his lover to keep his cover with a gang of gay-bashers.
Not sexually graphic, often warm and funny, Get Real is a rare film that you wish homophobic teenagers and adults would see, and somehow become more accepting.
