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Pride Movie Review

Pride is a 2014 British historical dramedy film directed by Matthew Warchus and starring Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton and Ben Schnetzer. It’s an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser.

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“Where are my lesbians?“

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A mini-bus full of gay activists in the UK set out to help miners during their lengthy strike of the National Union of Mineworkers. This movie was based on true events, so it has that element of historical importance to it, especially in regards to LGBT and socialist activist movements. In its support for the miners against the government the film had very strong socialist overtones, which is typically British and would not fly as well in the US.

My main issue with Pride is its uneven tone. I actually love dramedies, but too often here the comedic and wholesome approach came at the expense of the dramatic core of the story that has its tragic moments with violence and AIDS, but it mostly glossed over those harsh truths of gay life in the eighties in favor of a more family-friendly and crowd-pleasing approach.

The highlight of the picture has to be the acting. This ensemble cast all delivered such strong work. Andrew Scott was wonderful and it’s ridiculous that he was the only out gay member of the cast. George MacKay of ‘1917’ fame was also very well cast and quite effective while Ben Schnetzer delivered an underappreciated performance as basically the protagonist of the story and this brave, great activist that reminds us how activism once actually meant something unlike today. Bill Nighy was suitably terrific and so were all the other veterans of the cast, but it is Imelda Staunton who got the funniest role of the bunch.

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Pride is technically rather inferior. Matthew Warchus’ direction is pretty standard, the movie’s editing is far from great and the cinematography and score were also only serviceable. There is a lot of charm, poignancy and heart to be found in this flick, but it all came at the expense of real emotional heft and sophisticated themes. The dialogue was superb and the humor was actually very strong with many laugh-out-loud moments and lines, but ultimately its feel-good, populist tone prevented me from enjoying it more.