GET REAL | 1998 |

GET REAL | 1998 | Get Real is a 1998 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Simon Shore, based on the play What’s Wrong with Angry? by screenwriter Patrick Wilde. The plot centres the coming of age of a gay teen while growing up in rural Britain. The film was shot in and around Basingstoke, England. Get Real has since become a cult classic among fans of queer cinema. When homosexuality was still an absolute taboo in England, sensitive rural town model student Steven Carter hides his gay feelings, except with his neighbour, a girl named Linda. Suddenly his desperate search for partners in male public lavatories leads to a blind date with golden boy John Dixon, bound for an Oxbridge career. Steven finds the courage to approach John by volunteering for the school paper as sports photographer. A wonderful affair follows, but John is terrified of losing his social status. As the boys’ love blossoms, so grows despair about secrecy or outing consequences. Steven Carter (Ben Silverstone) is a 16-year-old middle-class schoolboy: intelligent and good-looking, but unathletic and introverted. Bullied at school, misunderstood at home, his only confidant is his neighbor and best friend, Linda (Charlotte Brittain). Keeping his sexuality hidden from everyone else, he cruises in public toilets. He is surprised to find the school jock, John Dixon (Brad Gorton) also cruising, but John denies that he is gay. At a school dance, Steven gains a friend after he comforts Jessica (Stacy Hart), after an argument with a boyfriend, who is also his bully, Kevin (Tim Harris). When he returns home, John follows him and confides about his own sexuality. They decide to start a relationship. Word around the school spreads about someone being gay in the school, and John fears that Steven has been telling people. In order to maintain his status in the school, John beats up Steven in front of his friends. Steven announces in front of assembly that he is gay, and looks to John for support, but he does not. In the end, John apologizes for beating him up and says he loves him, but as he is too afraid to come out, Steven breaks up with him, wishing him happiness. Get Real was filmed in and around Basingstoke from the 17th August 1997, before moving on to the Millenium Studios in Borehamwood on the 22nd September. (The scenes shot in the studio were Steven’s bedroom and the inside of the public toilet). The entire movie took six weeks to shoot.[2] Reception The film ranked number 34 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 50 Best High School Movies/ The film was well received by many critics, and subsequently nominated for eight awards, and won six, including the British Independent Film Award 1998. In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Paula Nechak praised the film for allowing the characters to be themselves rather than change to fit in, and praises the treatment of the ’jock’ character John as being just as bound by the school popularity game as Steven Roger Ebert commented “Certainly this film has deeper values than the mainstream teenage comedies that retail aggressive materialism, soft-core sex and shallow ideas about “popularity.“Steven Holden from The New York Times wrote “The movie captures the excruciating paranoia of a situation in which there’s nowhere the lovers can be alone except in each other’s homes on the rare occasions their parents are out.“ Cast Ben Silverstone as Steven Carter Brad Gorton as John Dixon Charlotte Brittain as Linda Jacquetta May as Steven’s Mother David Lumsden as Steven’s Father Richard Hawley as English Teacher Martin Milman as Headmaster Stacy Hart as Jessica Kate McEnery as Wendy Patrick Nielsen as Mark Tim Harris as Kevin Grainger James D. White as Dave James Perkins as Young Steve Nicholas Hunter as Young Mark Steven Mason as Cruising Man