Beautiful Thing

This film is about two teenagers in a deprived neighbourhood coming out and falling for each other.

Character development is excellent in the movie. The impoverished neighbourhood and the rough people are shown right from the beginning. Ste is an abused teenager, and the mere sight of him evokes sympathy. Jamie's courage and insistence on Ste is to be admired. This film tells the fear and confusion of coming out. A particularly memorable scene is when Ste cries in next to Sandra in her apartment. He cries with his face turned away from Sandra, with his hands covering one side of his face. To me, it is such a powerful scene, because it sums up all the confusion, shame, fear and hurt Ste must have felt in his premature involuntary coming out. The film is warm and affecting. I am glad about the happy ending, which is much needed to bring gay teenagers hope and comfort.

A wonderful story of gay teenagers that is ideal for parents to show their children; so that they understand that gay people may be different, but not bad. Faithful to the play, great music score and gives a real feeling of English tenements.

Gay or straight, this is one of the finest movies ever made about self discovery and teenage love. Albeit the end is a little wishful and optimistic, the characters and situations are perfectly developed and realized, ringing true in almost every scene. This movie makes me smile on every level...from the way the two boys discover their affection for one another, the wonderful comedy relief from the next door neighbor Leah (and her relationship with the entire tenement population), and the perfect choice of soundtrack music from Mama Cass that, at times, seems written specifically for certain scenes and works on both a nostalgic and familiarity level. This movie gets better with every viewing...and I'd love to see what happened to each of the characters in a sequal.

This movie is, without a doubt, very personal to all gay men and women who came out during their youth and a favorite of all of my friends, both gay and straight.

Never have I seen such a simple film that was so satisfying. The screenwriter dealt with the issue of homosexuality among teenagers in a realistic and smart manner. Every time the film becomes a little too dramatic, the director has something funny happen to lighten the atmosphere, which makes for a sweet and touching film. Also, all the characters are complex, so that bad characters do good things and good characters do bad things. Nobody is perfect and nobody is all bad, which makes the film even more realistic. It's similar to the more recent Get Real, but Beautiful Thing is definitely better. This is without a doubt my favorite gay film. Only the British can make a film this good!

By the time this was released I was already in my 20's but still this tale of teenage love and awakening desire between these two boys stirred something inside of me and now in my 40's it still breaks my heart and how misspent my youth was, afraid of what others would think of me.

Such bravery in the story telling, so frank and honest in it's portrayal of a same sex love at that time - I adore this movie how ever dated it may feel now. The message still remains - Make your own kind of music !!

Great casting, wonderful soundtrack and, for a change for a movie about gay love, a happy ending !!

The film will always remain in my heart of what could have been for me xxx