GET REAL
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Paramount Classics Director: Simon Shore Writer: Patrick Wilde, based on his play "What's Wrong With Angry?" Cast: Ben Silverstone, Charlotte Brittain, Brad Gordon, Louise J. Taylor
This item appeared in the Associated Press on March 24...PIESON, Fla. (AP) - School officials reversed their decision and will allow a teen-age boy to attend his high school prom in drag. Charles Rice plans to wear a red, floor- length evening gown, red satin shoes, gloves and matching rhinestone jewelry to Saturday's prom. Taylor High School Principal Peter Oatman changed his mind after conferring with attorneys. "I should have the freedom to express myself," said the 18-year-old senior, who is gay.
Good for the kid, and good for the principal who avoided an inevitable, losing court fight! The young men in American high schools who would love to wear gowns to their proms would not have the courage (and perhaps bad sense) to do what this boy did, so we should not expect most gay young men in upper-middle-class suburban English schools to dress in drag either. The central character of "Get Real," a well- written, richly photographed film under the spirited direction of Simon Shore, has no intention of being so audacious. All he wants is to be respected for what he is: a quiet, gay person, with the right simply to be seen in public with a male lover if he so chooses. He does not want to be harassed or beaten to a pulp simply because of his sexual orientation. "Get Real" is as British a film as "Jawbreaker" and "Waterboy" are American high-school stories. Like other English takes on school life such as "The Winslow Boy" and "The Browning Version" and "Quartermaine's Terms," nobody is stuffed into the trunk of a car, nor is anyone scraped off the ceiling. "Get Real" is a compassionate, delicate narrative about a 16-year- old in a reputable school who feels himself an outsider not because he is gay, but because he must dishonesty portray himself as straight to his parents and his schoolmates. The subtext--one which, I feel, is not a valid one despite the writer's own feeling on the matter--is that a homosexual who comes out of the closet will inevitably feel more comfortable with himself and his surroundings.
The story focuses on Steven Carter (Ben Silverstone), a 16-year-old attending a public (that is, a private) academy in the wealthy English suburb of Basingstoke--itself unusual in that the film breaks away from the current fashion for working-class tales from the sceptered like "Twenty-four Seven" and "Carla's Song." Steven's parents seem in the dark about their boy's sexual orientation, and while some of the toughs in the school bother him and call him a queer, we suspect they do so only because Steven is a delicate sort of lad. Steven is astonished when the school jock, John Dixon (Brad Gordon), makes a play for him. Dixon is adamant about covering up his own orientation. He dates a leggy model, is a star athlete, and has every girl in the school drooling. Since only Steven's best friend, the plump and sharp-tongued Linda (Charlotte Brittain), is aware of his feelings, the lovely Jessica (Stacy A. Hart) wonders why Steven rebuffs the advances she is making on the young man. Ultimately the dilemma is resolved at an awards assembly program, at which point Steven lets it all hang out, so to speak.
While this is the sort of story that could have come from the pen of early Oscar Wilde, the movie is actually based on a play by Patrick Wilde, "What's Wrong With Angry?" Director Simon Shore has successfully opened the staged drama to include some strikingly pretty photographs of the English countryside. His cinematographer, Alan Almond, captures the environs of a fairly swanky school, where the youngsters wear blazers and ties while some of the teachers dress like urban American instructors. Among the scenes that capture the ambience of this privileged institution is one taking place in an English class in which a 16-year-old girl beautifully reads a section from "Romeo and Juliet" followed by an active class discussion. Significantly, the English teacher (Richard Hawley) queries his small group about whether they think Juliet should tell her parents about her secret marriage to Romeo.
While the tone of the story is a serious one, "Get Real" is peppered with double-entendres, as when John offers Steven a cigarette: "Fag?" When John follows up with "filthy habit," Steven assumes that he means homosexuality, not smoking. There is a cute scene that introduces us to how Steven and John initially form their liaison, one which takes place in a park bathroom.
If the conclusion is too pat--Steven's mother (Jacquetta May) doing the obligatory "I'm-proud-of-my-gay-son" shtick, the film as a whole is involving, one which succeeds not only as entertainment but could be used as a primer for kids even on the junior high school level to teach toleration and, even better, acceptance of those whose ways of thinking less popular. "Get Real" was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival where it won the Audience Award in 1998 and was selected for the 1998 Toronto Festival and at Sundance in 1999.
Not Rated. Running Time: 105 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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