Review of Pride (2014) by James D — 13 Dec 2014

8.5/10 Delightful, inspiring, entertaining and moving. Pride isn't only one of the best of the year, it is the best "feel-good" movie I have seen in quite some time. I am counting to have this in my final top 10 of the year. I loved this movie.

The very solid and confident direction sustains an amazing script that combined with the stunning, superb cast makes this movie what it is. It's funny, dramatic, uplifting, subtle all in one. I came out totally inspired, feeling better about life. All of this works well because the movie is never, ever manipulative as happens for 90% of true stories movies. It is so brilliantly underplayed, with attention to small things over larger than life concepts. It makes you appreciate humanity in its truest forms, you follow a large amount of characters and you get to know them all profoundly. Some movies don't even manage to make you appreciate the main character, this one manages to make you emphasize with more than a dozen. None of these are overplayed or exaggerated people, they all feel honest and real, by the end of the movie I felt so involved with them, it seemed I had known them forever. I can't stress enough how good the character work is here, it is so rare to find such a treasure. But all of this wouldn't be possible without the cast assembled. With the SAG nominations just out this week, I just want to make a point about how disgusting is the awards machine, the awards campaigning. It takes away what they should be really about which is true quality, not shaking hands! This to say that it's preposterous for this movie not to have been nominated for best ensemble. It's so unfair. This cast deserves to win that f**** award! This is the best cast ensemble performance I have seen in way too long. And is destroys me not to see this movie have the attention it deserves only because it is a too small movie and doesn't have the support of the other bigger independents. This is what awards should do, bring about to the public these gems of cinema. But that's me bragging. Point is: cast=amazing, amazing, amazing! Faye Marsay in particular was just a force of nature on the screen, I literally couldn't take my eyes off her. Even in the scenes where she served as background I was looking at her, she was so into her role.

This movie doesn't make it to a 9 for me by just a millimeter. It had some cringe moments, some slightly over the top/surreal interventions, some storytelling shortcutting that kept me from forgetting this was a movie. They aren't frequent, but when they came they took some of the magic away and lessened the end result. Yet, that's all I have to say on the negative side.

Go see this movie now! You will come out feeling like a better person, wanting to do something good for the world.