Review of Get Real (2009) by Stuart K — 19 Nov 2009

A low-budget British film which won awards at loads of various film festivals around the world, it should have put it's director Simon Shore, it's writer Patrick Wilde and it's young cast on the map as the next big things of British cinema.

It sadly didn't turn out that way, this enjoyed a brief success, then it vanished and everyone forgot about it. Talk about having 15 minutes of fame. Set in Basingstoke, this focuses on the young, troubled life of Steven Carter (Ben Silverstone), a 16-year-old schoolboy who just so happens to be a homosexual, but is having trouble with coming out to those he knows well.

Plus, he gets picked on at school and he is a social misfit, but he finds solace with his next door neighbour Linda (Charlotte Brittain). However, things become even more complicated when the school's head boy and sports star John Dixon (Brad Gorton).

Steve and John fall for each other, and have a relationship, knowing they have to keep it quiet because no-one would believe it. It's a touching romance film, different from the rest. And it does make a serious point about people's narrow-mindedness towards homosexuality and how hard it is for some to cope with it.

Quite thought provoking too.