Review of Pride (2014) by Ben R — 05 Jan 2015

What a beautiful movie. The cast is top-notch, the story is both interesting and heartwarming, there are a plethora of hilarious moments, and there's enough conflict for it to hold your attention the whole movie, without really forcing conflict and generally allowing for happiness and teamwork to flourish from early on until the end. It's just a happy movie, you know?

I'm not sure what you could complain about with this movie. I guess some characters are sort of archetypes, but that's necessary with an ensemble cast like this one, and besides, the actors do a great job of making up for their limited screen time by making their few scenes count. It's clear Joe Copper is fictional, a sort of audience surrogate created to introduce us to LGSM, but that's okay, because his stereotypical situation is made genuine thanks to his actor, the strong direction, and the particular details in the script.

There's also just a lot of beautiful visual moments. The Wales countryside is gorgeous, and the whole visual feel of the movie is colorful and vibrant to match the spirit and optimism of the movie.

I guess one more complaint somebody could make is that the themes are a bit expected, nothing truly new. I'm sure there are aspects of the story that are misrepresented or simplified in the film, and overall the movie is pretty simple. So...I guess I can understand if somebody was looking for a deeper message and was instead met with a treacly or overly sentimental movie. But, to be honest, I don't think every movie needs to be extremely complex or true to life, and it'd be hard for me to make that complaint when I was having so much fun spending time with the characters onscreen. There's just so much unapologetic happiness, from Dominic West's amazing dance scene to the crazy old ladies having fun (I loved all of them) to the gay pride parade at the movie's end. I just had a lot of fun watching the characters, and even if the story and themes are pretty basic, it doesn't make it less moving to see two distinct communities support each other, or to see the simple but effecting image of two hands clasped together.