Official Synopsis
It’s the summer of 1984 and much of blue-collar Great Britain is on strike. For one tiny Welsh village, the strike brings unexpected visitors – a group of London-based activists who decide to raise money to support the strikers’ families and want to make their donation in person. In this feel–good, heartwarming comedy, two groups, seemingly from worlds apart, discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all.
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This is one of those films that concentrates solely on the story’s purpose and doesn’t spend much time expanding and examining its characters that make up said story. Some movies can get away with this and some can’t, but Pride focuses on what’s important and does a great job with it.
The film starts out with a Lesbian/Gay activist group trying to find a way to be heard/understood in a very homophobic English society. Led by a man named Mark (Ben Schnetzer), he devises a plan for the group to collect money for the recently striking miners in a small Welsh country side, which would help the miners survive, while at the same time promoting understanding of LGBT groups — something desperately needed in England during the 80s. Sadly, the miners union group, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), have their own political agenda and have implemented the strike against their workers will, thus leaving the miners (and their families) poor and hungry. The first act of the film has the LGBT group trying to find a way to communicate to the Welsh town that they want to help. NUM wants nothing to do with the LGBT group — and they are the middle-man between the town and any charity. NUM thinks the LGBT group is an abomination, so the that’s the first obstacle the group has to overcome.
As the first act comes to a close, the group decides to go around NUM and they go to the source of the need — the Welsh village. So, the group contacts the village’s leader, Dai (Paddy Considine), who works as a bridge between the group and village. Dai’s initial reaction to the group is that of surprise and then humbleness. The message of overcoming fears to fulfill survival needs creates a pleasant understanding and adaption between the village and the LGBT group.
One thing that bothered me about this film is that we never get to truly meet our players in the LGBT group. Their individual character development was a bit shallow, as each person was explained in only a few sentences and never really developed in the true sense of the word. And they never get developed properly as the film leaves act one and goes through acts two and three. Usually that’s a major problem when reviewing a movie, but here it seems a bit acceptable in this case, as the movie itself is based around the theory that it takes teamwork to see things through properly and it’s not just an individual’s efforts.
The film works well because it focuses on this theory and it is centrally focused on the events that unfold. Having read up on the situation online (thank you, interwebs!), the amount of families affected by NUM’s actions is pretty brutal. The 80s were not an economically kind time for a lot of major countries, including England. Putting blue collar workers out of a job wasn’t very conducive for the survival of a lot of English families and the way NUM went about the strike was very anti-worker and nothing short of shady and corruptive.
Anyway, the point of all that rambling is that characters were secondary and the situation was the focus. Director Matthew Warchus and writer Stephen Beresford did a great job with keeping that focus clear from the beginning of the film until the end. It also helped to define and keep the individual groups focused on what their respective missions were within the story. Again, this is something I would generally frown upon when reviewing films, but the groups were so darn affected by the strike, and the LGBT’s own struggles, that keeping their end game in focus was far more important than trying to develop any individual characters. Two groups could only survive if they were firmly focused on their goals and contributing as a team.
Anyway, as act two goes into full force, we find our groups coming together and slowly learning a lot from each other. The blue collar town, who know nothing about the LGBT group, warm up to the lasses and lads and begin to find understanding in their situation. Even so much that a couple of the villagers seek help in other areas that they may not have asked about if they hadn’t been approached by the LGBT activists.
On the flip side to that coin, the LGBT group begins to see a bigger picture. They see that their own fight is worth the efforts and also that their fight alongside the miners is more than just propelling their own cause to the forefront of the English national news. In short, both sides understand and respect each other by the end of act two. This is where the movie does a great job with balancing out both groups and bringing them together beautifully. The groups do a great job with merging and becoming a single unit of contention and survival.
Of course, not everyone is onboard with the LGBT’s help and there has to be an antagonist along the way (a stuck up villager that spreads hate into the minds of her sons). Her efforts derail and severely hurt both groups’ plans and end up resetting some things before the end of act three. Small minded people, what are you going to do?
As the movie starts heading towards its conclusion, it wraps up pretty well and ends with happiness, but, sadly, also tragedy.
What I also liked about Pride, outside of the story and group efforts, is how director Matthew Warchus and writer Stephen Beresford sprinkled in a bit of 80s fears that society put together about LGBT groups. Having grown up in the 80s, I can say that American society, and even the American media, had a lot of misinformation and agendas about LGBT groups and about the topic of HIV/AIDs. Those same fears were brought up subtly throughout Pride and were major concerns during that time period. Although, I wish the topic of HIV/AIDs was a bit more prominent towards the end of the movie, mainly because it affected a few characters, I understand stand how the movie wanted to stay on track with the larger picture it was trying to create. Maybe the director and writer duo can put together a great film about HIV/AIDs concerns in the 80s, as they could probably do it well.
In the end, Pride is an excellent film filled with comedy, drama, understanding and love. It’s definitely worth checking out.
On the Blu-ray side of things, the Blu-ray transfer for Pride is good. The foggier scenes of the Welsh country side tend to bring out some artifacts and graininess to the film. The quality shines when the movie is sporting good lighting, blue skies and when it’s on the cobbled streets of London. The environment during the filming put the quality of the transfer to the test, as a typical day in England involves a lot of rain and fog, though I will say that the snowy times in the film look much better than the rain/fog times. Anyway, the quality is good at best.
The audio comes to you in 5.1 DTS-HD and the film’s aspect ratio is 2.40:1.
On the special features side of things, here’s what to expect:
– Deleted/Extended Scenes
– Pride: The True Story
While there isn’t a lot here, there is a great feature that tells the true story of the events in the film. It fills in some gaps that the movie might have hurried along past.