At first glance, one might wonder about the value of another feelgood film about the miner's strike of the 1980s, especially given that we've already had two - Brassed Off and Billy Elliot - covering similar ground.
But in fact Pride is incredibly timely, and surprisingly political.
Many consider David Cameron's government as Thatcherism writ large. This year unions are mobilising for a wave of strikes over pay. Just as the miners, they struggle with a media that is either ambivalent or hostile; what they need, as did the miners, is a little love from the public at large. That's where Pride comes in, based on a true story of "solidarity" coming from the most unlikely of places.
It's 1984. Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) is watching news coverage of the strike, when he has an epiphany of sorts, recognising that the gay and lesbian community and the miners share the same enemies - Thatcher, the tabloid newspapers and the police. Joining the Gay Pride march in London, he hands out buckets to his friends and informs them that they need to start collecting for a new cause. Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) is born.
From here, writer Stephen Beresford's script is an exercise in culture-clash dynamics. First Mark has to persuade the gay community that miners - not particularly known for their open-mindedness - deserve their support. Attention then shifts to the Welsh mining community of Onllwyn, where good-natured Dai Donovan (Paddy Considine) has to break it to his fellow miners that the group raising more money for their cause then anyone else is gay.
Dai's first meeting with LGSM - and his brave and dignified speech to an initially sceptical crowd in a gay London club - is child's play compared to the reception that Mark and his friends receive in the Onllwyn working men's club. But ever the plucky activist, Mark confronts the rebuff with a determination to raise even more cash.
The story weaves through individuals in both communities. From London there's bookshop owner Gethin (Andrew Scott) who straddles both communities in being gay and Welsh, but was long ago alienated from his family and home; Gethin's boyfriend Jonathan (Dominic West), a sometime actor and the most flamboyant of the group, whose spontaneous and unabashed disco dancing performance in the club actually breaks the ice; and Joe (George Mackay), who is taking his first tentative steps out of the closet.
The Welsh feature a couple of English actors tip-toeing around the accent, but lending their usual class to proceedings: Bill Nighy, as the mild-mannered club secretary, and Imelda Staunton as a miners support committee member - and one of the women whose tolerance, good humour and hilarious enthusiasm about their new friends is an object lesson to the men.
There are a few misjudgments, chief amongst them West's fake tan and highlights, and undistinguished disco moves. But for the most part director Matthew Warchus skilfully balances moments of saddening bigotry with shameless feelgood to keep his narrative moving. A scene when the Welsh, finally welcoming their guests, start singing Blood And Roses is very affecting, as is Scott's slow journey back to his roots and acceptance.
The strike failed, of course; moreover, the film reminds us that the gay community had its own, more pressing issue to face, in AIDS. But by closing with another Pride march, and the surprise in store for the marchers, it manages to end on a very inspiring high.
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