Get Real
UK/South Africa 1998
Reviewed by Jos Arroyo
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Sixth former Steven Carter lives in Basingstoke and leads a double life. Only Linda, his best friend and neighbour, knows he's gay. A good student, he avoids the school jocks who are queer-baiting him without even knowing his sexual orientation. After school, he cottages in the park. Steven has sex with an older man named Glen who turns out to be married. Linda can't seem to pass her driver's test, partly because she has a crush on her married male instructor.
One of the men Steven cruises while cottaging turns out to be John Dixon, the class jock. They agree to forget about their encounter but John starts dropping by Steven's to bare his soul. Eventually they have sex and fall in love. While having sex in the park they're caught by the police. John escapes but Steven is brought home by the cops and his parents are lectured on what goes on in parks. Steven wants to come out but John is too scared. Steven wins an award for an essay on "Growing Up as We Approach the New Millennium", but anonymously submits another called "Get Real" on growing up gay. Just before the prize-giving ceremony, John and Steven are caught embracing and John beats Steven up so his mates won't think he's gay. A battered Steven publicly comes out at the prize-giving ceremony and earns the support of his family and classmates. While John stays in the closet, Linda and Steven, each having passed their own tests, throw their L-plates out the window as they drive off.
Review
Get Real is the latest in a long line of coming-out films in which the protagonists keep getting younger and younger. At this rate, we'll have films where boys turn from crayons to perfume in kindergarten. This film's coming-of-age/coming-out story is similar to those of Beautiful Thing and the recent television series Queer as Folk. The comparisons are unavoidable and unfortunate: Get Real is occasionally charming but lacks the good nature, easy warmth and fairy-tale appeal of Beautiful Thing, while it hasn't got Queer as Folk's glossy look, relative glamour and knowing wit. Gay people have seemingly found a sense of enfranchisement from the increasing range of queer imagery across the media, but Get Real's good intentions don't quite seem sufficient.
Get Real benefits from a complex and compelling script, offering a range of rounded characters whose predicaments are admirably dramatised. The cottaging sequences, a scene in which teenagers Steven Carter and John Dixon can't help looking at each other while dancing with someone else, and the scene where John batters Steven are all memorably tense and compelling. However, there are elements that don't quite work. It's hard to believe that a sixth former is so queer-acculturated as to make jokes about interior decoration and have a photo of Simone Signoret in Casque d'or (1952) posted above his bed. The ending might have benefited from more complexity: the celebration of Steven's coming out is arguably inevitable, but is it necessary to have it at John's expense? His completely understandable fear of coming out is first posited as cowardice and then given short-shrift as the spotlight is shone on the liberating powers of its young hero's moral virtue.
In spite of these reservations, the dialogue is generally very good, but the film could have been so much better. Fault must lie squarely with the direction. Filmed in widescreen, the individual shots are composed with self-conscious care, yet there is little to engage the eye, a visual paucity that widescreen magnifies. Likewise, the gifted cast, particularly the young players, seem over-rehearsed, their line readings full of carefully considered inflections interspersed between numerous pauses. When John comes out to Steven - breaking down as he expresses his (beautifully written) fear, loneliness and desire - the extremely long take overstretches Brad Gorton, who despite his skill lacks the experience to sustain the scene. As it stands, director Simon Shore (who made the thriller The English Wife) leaves Gorton exposed and wastes an opportunity to show us more of Steven's reaction or the setting. Likewise, Steven's climactic coming out is filmed largely in profile, a type of shot which allows inspection without creating contact or offering intimacy. While it tries to be artful, Get Real ends up being merely likable and rather quaint. It's a petit-bourgeois Beautiful Thing - stolid, earnest and informed - and will no doubt find great favour with schoolteachers who want to get a discussion going but are afraid to expose their students to more challenging material.
Credits
- Producer
- Stephen Taylor
- Screenplay
- Patrick Wilde
- Based on his play What's Wrong with Angry?
- Director of Photography
- Alan Almond
- Editor
- Barrie Vince
- Production Designer
- Bernd Lepel
- Music
- John Lunn
- ©Graphite Films (Get Real) Ltd & Distant Horizon Ltd
- Production Companies
- Distant Horizon presents a Graphite Film with the participation of British Screen and The Arts Council of England
- Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
- Receipts collected & distributed by National Film Trustee Company Ltd
- a Graphite Films production
- Executive Producers
- Anant Singh
- Helena Spring
- Co-producer
- Patricia Carr
- Production Co-ordinator
- Janice Crotch
- Location Manager
- Mike Carter
- Post-production Supervisor
- Bruce Everett
- Assistant Directors
- John Duthie
- Sean Clayton
- Rebecca Sutton
- Crowd:
- Toni Edgar
- Script Supervisor
- Mary Haddow
- Casting Director
- Di Carling
- Steadicam Operator
- Alf Tramontin
- Computer Graphics Operator
- Nick Clark
- Art Directors
- Terry Ackland-Snow
- Roger Cain
- Set Decorators
- Simon Wakefield
- Amanda Grenville
- Storyboard Artist
- Andrew Barnden
- Costume Designer
- Bernd Lepel
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Maurizio Basile
- Hair/Make-up
- Chief Artist:
- Susan Parkinson
- Artist:
- Suzan Broad
- Title Design
- Plume
- Opticals/Effects
- The Magic Camera Company
- Music Performed by
- The Munich Symphony Orchestra
- Concert Master
- Skip Bouton
- Trumpet Solos
- Guy Barker
- Music Producer
- Graham Walker
- Music Production Co-ordinator
- Liz Schrek
- Music Editor
- Graham Sutton
- Special Music Adviser
- David Hepworth
- Soundtrack
- "Respect" by Otis Redding, performed by Aretha Franklin; "Staying out for the Summer" by Nigel Clark, Andrew Miller, Matthew Priest, performed by Dodgy; "Love Is All Around" by Reg Presley, performed by The Troggs; "Two's Company" by Max Harris; "Word Up" by Larry Blackmon, Tomi Jenkins, performed by Cameo; "OM-23" by Steve Dixon, Brian Moss, performed by Drug Free America; "If You Want It to Be Good Girl (Get Yourself a Bad Boy)" by Robert John 'Mutt' Lange, performed by The Backstreet Boys; "Play That Funky Music White Boy" by Robert W. Parissi, performed by Dave Danger, Chris Cawte Funk Band; "You Are So Beautiful" by Billy Preston, Bruce Fisher, performed by Ian Harrison, piano by Peter Gosling; "Shine" by Calum MacColl, Neill MacColl, Leroy Lender, Robert Bond, performed by The Liberty Horses; "El Tranquilandia" by Paul Gallagher, Duncan Lomax, performed by North Pacific Drift; "Misunderstood" by Tim Warriner, performed by Kings of Infinite Space; "Dr. Who Theme" by Ron Grainer; "Bobby's Girl" by Henry Hoffman, Gary Klein, performed by Charlotte Brittain; "Beautiful One" by Robert White, performed by The Milk and Honey Band; "Think" by Ted White, Aretha Franklin, performed by Aretha Franklin
- Sound Mixer
- Bill Dodkin
- Dubbing Mixer
- David Old
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Steve Schwalbe
- Dialogue Editor
- Colin Ritchie
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jason Swanscott
- Dianne Greaves
- Editor:
- Harry Barnes
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Mark Newman
- Frank Henson
- Cast
- Ben Silverstone
- Steven Carter
- Brad Gorton
- John Dixon
- Charlotte Brittain
- Linda
- Stacy A. Hart
- Jessica
- Kate McEnery
- Wendy
- Patrick Nielsen
- Mark
- Tim Harris
- Kevin
- James D. White
- Dave
- James Perkins
- young Steven
- Nicholas Hunter
- young Mark
- Jacquetta May
- Steven's mother
- David Lumsden
- Steven's father
- David Elliot
- Glen
- Morgan Jones
- Linda's brother
- Richard Hawley
- English teacher
- Steven Mason
- cruising man
- Charlotte Hanson
- Glen's wife
- Alina Hazeldine
- crying baby
- Louise J. Taylor
- Christina Lindmann
- Steven Elder
- Bob, the driving instructor
- Leonie Thomas
- aunt at wedding
- David Paul West
- bridegroom
- Andy Rashleigh
- policeman
- Ian Brimble
- John's father
- Judy Buxton
- John's mother
- Dorothy Clark
- woman driving instructor
- Amy Redler
- Julie
- Martin Milman
- headmaster
- Andy Tungate
- Roger McGregor
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 9,932 feet
- 110 minutes 21 seconds
- Dolby
- Colour by
- Rank Film Laboratories
- Anamorphic [Panavision]