Pride: a film by Matthew Warchus
Pride
a film by Matthew Warchus
Calamity Films
Sweet, slightly mawkish but uplifting. Not words I would associate with the British Miners’ Strike of 1984-85.
Pride directed by Matthew Warchus is the ‘feelgood’ portrayal of the true story of how LGBT activists of London were inspired to help raise money for the striking miners in South Wales. The opening shots with the soundtrack of Pete Seeger’s ‘Solidarity Forever’ promise an energy and authenticity that the film doesn’t deliver.
The film starts with the dynamic Mark, played by Ben Schnetzer dismissing a handsome one night stand, as TV footage shows the developing strike. Thatcher picked her enemy well in the charismatic but flawed National Union of Mineworkers’ leader, Arthur Scargill … The humiliation of a coal strike that had done for a Tory government in the 1970s led in part to the provocation of the 1984-5 strike. Mrs. Thatcher prepared well for the strike: stock-piling coal and mobilizing a semi-military police force. Mining communities from Lanarkshire in Scotland to South Wales through England’s Yorkshire had no choice but to strike to avoid the threatened pit closures and destruction of mining towns, villages and families.
With a motley crew of LGBT friends, Mark decides to collect money in familiar NUM buckets for the cause. Warchus was playing mainly for laughs with the LGBT comrades; they are argumentative and amusing. They are joined by the shy Joe (George Mc Kay), from Bromley in Kent (south England) who furtively walks in the Gay Pride march In spring 1984 and gradually finds his gay identity through his involvement in their miners’ support group. They meet in a still existent Bloomsbury book shop ‘Gay’s the Word’ run by Jonathon (Dominic West) and Gethin (Andrew Scott).
One lesbian, Steph is in the group, spikily played by Faye Marsay. As a supporter of miners’ wives’ support groups and vibrant and successful women’s groups in Sheffield and London at that time; I found the paucity of female characters in the LGBT group a disappointment. When two new lesbians do join the group they apologise for their desire for women-only groups. We didn’t apologise at that time; we informed.
When the National Union of Mineworkers homophobically rejects the offer of support from the group, they go rogue and find an individual mining community to support. They chance upon Onllwyn, a Welsh mining village, and the director has the blessings of the epic green and mountainous Welsh scenery and taciturn tuneful Welsh accents to spice up the story.
Bill Nighy, playing the shy and knowledgeable Cliff is his usual wry and understated self. Imelda Staunton as Hefina is feisty and funny.
Inevitable stand offs between the sexually inhibited Welsh miners and families and London queens ‘and one lesbian’ are resolved over the dance floor and a benefit concert in London featuring The Communards. The courage and desperation of the struggle and the hedonistic abandon of the fin de siècle chic of 1980s gay culture is inauthentic. Where were Holly Johnson, Mark Almond and Sylvester? It was a feel good cliché not quite successfully pulled off.
Other reviews have noted the sexlessness of the gay relationships shown; the one lesbian kiss in the movie is for laughs.
Of more concern is the emasculated (it was a male fight) portrayal of the actual strike. Men died and were cruelly injured. (see the Battle of Orgreave).
Paddy Consedine plays Dai the trades union leader of the village with humanity and sensitivity, urging Mark to maintain his private as well as his political life. Our political heartstrings should be tugged when the miners sing ‘Bread and Roses’ in a moment of communal singing, this time led by a woman. Welsh male voice choirs produce a music which can melt the coldest souls. Why that sound wasn’t used in this film, I don’t know. A film about solidarity between unlikely supporters and striking Welsh miners might too have alluded to the great Paul Robeson who came to the assistance of impoverished miners in the 1930s. Scenes at the pit heads are flimsy and fake. Giggling police tease the pickets. In reality, battalions of police, bussed in from the south of England, charged at unarmed working men and in 1985, mining towns, villages and families were destroyed.
Aids is a background villain, providing the standout moment of the film when Russell Tovey as Tim, weeps as he tells Mark, he is on his ‘farewell tour’. Mortality is the enemy we choose to ignore.
That iced, snow-capped, north winded, winter of 1984 almost froze the miners back to work. The houses with families surviving on handout soup and no heating are conveyed with a piercing veracity in some beautiful shots of snow dusted Welsh streets.
The strike is broken long before the end of the film. We see the brave, return to work with marching bands and applauding wives. A light tone is maintained with reconciliation between Gethin and his mother. Joe’s journey to his truth about his sexuality is the story of the remaining section of the film. We see him reject his suburban family and return to his soul family at ‘Gay’s the Word.’
Tidily the film ends with the spring 1985 ‘Pride’ march complete with an ‘out’ Joe and coach loads of miners.
Pride is an entertainment, not a manifesto. It conveys some of the chutzpah and vigor of the very real political lives of the LGBT and NUM communities. I laughed, I cried. Just like I did in 1985.
— Rosa Redoz