Across just 122 minutes, Matthew Warchus’ film manages to explore the miners’ strike, the gay liberation movement, and the beginning of the AIDS crisis.

Pride is based on the true story of LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners), and the group’s relationship with a small Welsh mining town. LGSM was set up in 1984 by Mark Ashton‎ (played here by Ben Schnetzer) and Mike Jackson (Joseph Gilgun), and raised £22,500 for striking miners. Pride is the story of the wholesome meeting of two different worlds.

Below, in this Movie List from The Film Magazine, are 5 reasons why Pride is one of the best films of the 21st Century. Spoilers ahead.

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1. The Blending of Political Agendas

“I support you whoever you are, hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder, as it should be.”

Pride is unashamedly political, and carefully combines two previously unrelated groups – striking miners, and gay and lesbian activists.

The film does not focus too much on negativity, but makes it clear that it is not shying away from the realities of life for marginalised groups. We see Gethin (Andrew Scott) cleaning graffiti from the front window of his bookshop “Gay’s the Word”, as well as the material realities of striking for the miners, such as Dai (Paddy Considine) having his gas and electricity cut off.

Although Mark’s (Ben Schnetzer’s) politics are watered down for the film – he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (a moment touched upon in a bar scene when someone shouts “commie” at him) – Pride has politics at its core; it’s difficult to watch this film and not feel genuine sympathy for the plight of its characters, each being oppressed by forces in government and wider society.

2. A Great Coming Out Scene

A conversation takes place between Cliff (Bill Nighy) and Hefina (Imelda Staunton) as they make sandwiches for the miners. Hefina is telling Cliff off for the indelicate way he is cutting the sandwich. After a few silent moments, Cliff simply says “I’m gay”, to which Hefina replies, “I know”.

You can sense Cliff’s relief at finally being able to say this out loud. He’s a quiet and reserved character, and it brings such joy to finally see Cliff moving someway towards accepting his true self.

This is a sensitive moment, delicately shot. Hefina tells Cliff she has known since 1968, and carries on buttering the bread. As far as coming out scenes go, this is one of the best in cinema, as it is perfect for the journey that we have seen this character go on.

Without the need for fanfare or a parade, Cliff is shown acceptance and love by Hefina. Other coming out scenes should take note.

How to Build a Girl (2019)
Director: Coky Giedroyc
Screenwriter: Caitlin Moran
Starring: Beanie Feldstein, Alfie Allen, Cleo, Dónal Finn, Paddy Considine

How do you build a girl? You plonk her on a flight to the UK and put her to work in a Wolverhampton gift shop for three weeks. At least, that’s how Californian ray of sunshine Beanie Feldstein built the sixteen-year-old, vivacious gunslinger, Johanna Morrigan. 

Based on Caitlin Moran’s best-selling, semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Coky Giedroyc’s How to Build a Girl follows Johanna, a friendless, young booklover, growing up on a Wolverhampton council estate with her rowdy family of Brummie oddballs (led sensationally by Paddy Considine). Desperate for change, Johanna finds a newspaper job ad calling out for hip young writers and pens a review of the “Annie” soundtrack. After some initial teasing, owning to her startling wide-eyed stare and offbeat personality, she manages to land herself a job writing music reviews for the fictitious music mag, D&ME. 

With her new job, Johanna becomes the family’s primary provider. Now able to pay rent and treat her family to a chippy tea, her cherry-red head starts to inflate and she begins to view herself as something of a rock critic prodigy. That is, until her gooey-eyed feature on John Kite (Alfie Allen), a sad-eyed, Welsh musician with whom she shares a magical bond, results in her upper-class, all-male colleagues casting her off as nothing more than an excitable teenage hack. Typical behaviour from the male gatekeepers of pop culture, who continue to turn a deaf ear to the valid opinions of adolescent girls, even though they have continuously proven to have their finger on the pulse when it comes to the next big thing—just look at the young female faces in the early crowds screaming for Timothée Chalamet, One Direction, or even The Beatles. Determined to continue on her path towards greatness, Johanna takes a nastier approach to criticism, reinventing herself as Dolly Wilde, whose cutting reviews earn her the accolade ‘Arsehole of The Year’ at a flashy music award show. Wilde’s catty commentary earns her an abundance of success and popularity, but it isn’t long before Johanna begins to struggle with who she has become.

How to Build a Girl speaks to the dauntlessness of a teenage imagination, and takes shape as a story of identity, sexual discovery and daring to dream beyond the limitations of your postcode. After years of roaming the moistureless desert of ‘boy meets girl and changes her life forever’ narratives, Johanna’s plucky ‘I’m doing it on my own’ attitude feels like a long, ice-cold drink. With exceptional one-liners such as “Don’t you know who I thought I was six weeks ago?”, or “I love doors, they make the outside stop”, Caitlin Moran and John Niven’s amusing script gives Johanna a peculiar uniqueness, meaning that she is easy to find both funny and likeable even when she is at her most insufferable. 

As for Feldstein, who reinvented the standard of a typical on-screen teenage girl with her roles as Julie in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and Molly in Oliva Wilde’s Booksmart, she makes up the very heart and soul of the film. Aside from a few wobbly moments with her Wolverhampton accent, Feldstein delivers a pitch-perfect British teenager existing on the outskirts of popularity and rational thought. Feldstein manages to inject loveable kookiness into Johanna, most recognisable when we see her carry a pint of Guinness all the way home from Dublin for her Dad, or eat a jar of jam while hiding under her bed. At times, it seems Feldstein’s performance outshines the very film itself, with the tired Britcom tropes of the narrative more often than not failing to catch up with Beanie’s exuberant personality and Hollywood professionalism. 

While there is more good than bad in How to Build a Girl, certain fanciful elements make many scenes fall flat. On Johanna’s bedroom wall hang countless photographs and posters of her favourite writers and inspirations, which often animate when Johanna requires some advice. Played by numerous iconic British comedy stars and TV personalities – there’s Martin Sheen as Sigmund Freud, Mel and Sue as Charlotte and Emily Bronte and Alexie Sayle as Karl Marx, to name but a few – the characters bicker with one another while they offer Johanna comically outdated advice on anything from orgasms and boys to success and kindness, each conversation as ludicrous as the next. While it’s something of a shock to the system to witness a thriving American actress like Beanie Feldstein interact with much-loved Bake Off hosts, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, these moments often feel like overdone clichés, more fitting of an early Harry Potter movie than a modern take on a ‘coming of age’ film.

A moment in which Johanna sees her celeb crush, John Kite, step out of a bus advertisement to walk her home in the rain is meant to capture the powerful imagination of a teenage mind in love, but is actually just distracting and ill-fitting with the overall tone of the film. For such an adventurous movie, it’s disappointing that Giedroyc so often tries to stuff Johanna in a box filled with overworked gimmicks more synonymous with British comedy sitcoms. Another direct result of this fantasia is that the film’s potent messages concerning feminism and the disadvantages of the working class start to feel watered down. Sexism and classism become issues that can be laughed off through witty comebacks, semi-serious emotive speeches and a series of cheeky winks.

The film works best when it allows Johanna to take off her top hat and enjoy a brief break from her performative, cringe-inducing sass routine. When she gets the time to steal a moment to talk about boys with her overtired Mum, affectionately bicker with her brother or have a deep late-night conversation about life with John Kite, the message of the film shines through. It is entirely possible to build a girl, and equally as possible to tear down the pieces and start again from scratch if you dislike what you have created.

But how exactly do you build a girl? Well, the answer you’ll find is exceptionally straightforward.

You don’t; a girl builds herself.

16/24

The World’s End (2013)
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenwriters: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, David Bradley

2013’s The World’s End has been cited by some fans as the most disappointing entry in the Cornetto Trilogy despite a positive reception from critics who welcomed it just as favourably as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Coming 6 years after the trilogy’s middle entry, The World’s End acts as the culmination of the miniature series of Pegg, Frost and Wright collaborations, offering yet more reoccurring gags and winks for fans, with plenty for new new viewers to digest. It recounts a quintet of school friends, led by Simon Pegg’s Gary King, as they attempt to finish a pub crawl known as The Golden Mile they had attempted some twenty-plus years prior, encountering some otherworldly obstacles en-route.

One of the film’s major strengths is the way in which it flips the leading roles of the two previous films on their head. On this occasion Nick Frost plays the uptight, professional and reluctant straight-man to Pegg’s man-child, the latter firmly longing for his adolescent years. This change in roles does little to nullify the chemistry of the two leads who, by this point, are so in tune that they hit every single mark and establish a relateable leading duo even after 6 years apart. Martin Freeman as Oliver is also cast against type as a stone faced estate agent, a far cry from his roles as Bilbo in The Hobbit and Tim in ‘The Office’. The other two members of the central quintet are famed British talent Paddy Considine (who of course featured in Hot Fuzz) and Cornetto newcomer Eddie Marsan (Filth).

As with the two previous entries in the Cornetto Trilogy, there is an assortment of guest stars including standouts Pierce Brosnan, Rosamund Pike and David Bradley, with a further selection of familiar faces strewn across the 12 pubs visited, including (as always) some of the cast of Wright and Pegg’s cult TV sitcom ‘Spaced’.

The 6 year gap between the films, which saw Pegg and Wright establish themselves as some of Hollywood’s go-to filmmakers on the likes of Star Trek and Mission: Impossible (Pegg), and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Wright), was one of the major drawbacks for The World’s End at launch as it led expectations to be at a high level amongst fans. It is difficult to note whether the gap (in terms of time and expectation) affected the film’s box office haul, which was just over half of what Hot Fuzz made, but in terms of audience reception there must be some consideration made towards the high levels of expectation the duo brought with them into this film.

As was the case with the previous Cornetto movies, The World’s End once again treated us to some inventive action sequences, including the trademarked pub fight. The standout here was perhaps the brawl in the pub toilet, which proved to be imaginative and enthralling, and nicely contrasted the style of action seen in Hot Fuzz.

Thematically, The World’s End has plenty to say and is without question the most sobering of the Cornetto films. It offers commentary on the “Starbucking” of UK towns as many of Newton Haven’s pubs have been bought out by chains and have lost their unique qualities, with a recurring comment being whether it is our quintet or their childhood town that has changed the most. Another of the main themes is letting go of the past and any disappointment one might feel about how life has turned out, Gary commenting that his life was never as good as the night they first attempted the Golden Mile. The film also offers insight into life in a small town and the nature of a lads’ night out. Meanwhile, the surprising addition of an alien invasion thread proves to be satisfying and gives the premise a welcome breath of fresh air.

A great soundtrack is one of the hallmarks of the whole trilogy and music plays arguably its most prominent role in its finale. A particular emphasis is placed on 90s Britpop which reflects the group’s at-the-time burgeoning adulthood with tracks from the likes of The Stone Roses, Pulp and The Happy Mondays. In keeping with the pub crawl theme, several of the tracks including The Doors’ “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)” and The Housemartins’ “Happy Hour” are nods to the film’s alcohol-fueled plot-line.

The World’s End does, overall, round the trilogy off in fine fashion. It is more of a slow burner than its two predecessors, building suspense and a sense that something is not quite right with the residents of Newton Haven, the audience and characters alike being teased for longer than before, and the slow build isn’t to everyone’s taste, but the contrasts to the previous entries tonally and character- wise bring added depth and ensure the film never feels formulaic or repetitive. In The World’s End, we are offered more of a varied glimpse at the acting chops of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as well as some strong support from the core cast. Perhaps the film will be viewed in a more positive light in the years to come and step out of the shadow of its two siblings to take on a life of its own, but for now it remains an underappreciated entry into the canon of the Cornetto films and Edgar Wright’s wider filmography.

Score: 17/24

My Summer of Love (2004)
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Screenwriter: Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring: Natalie Press, Emily Blunt, Paddy Considine

Taking a retrospective look at Pawel Pawlikowski’s first English language outing My Summer of Love is like peering into the machinations of the great auteur’s most recent outings, this romantic drama set amongst the hills of the Yorkshire countryside featuring many of the director’s current trademarks and being perhaps even more indicative of the filmmaker’s rich list of influences than any of his work since. My Summer of Love really feels like a look back into the spring of a great career.

Pawlikowski’s most recent work Cold War – an entry into The Film Magazine’s 100 Greatest Films of the 2010s – was one notably influenced by the great works of Andrei Tarkovsky (Stalker; Solaris), and early signs of this powerful influence are present in My Summer of Love. Thematically, Pawlikowski offers his own vastly important (in terms of understanding his work) ruminations on religion, while shooting some moments of performance with an almost inherent ability to capture a face just as the great Russian director had done. In Natalie Press, Pawlikowski finds his most photographable hero, a woman without many a facial feature to note, a blank canvas for the filmmaker to paint with story, the mise-en-scene and his management of her inevitably intelligent performance.

In contrast, the defining features of a young Emily Blunt are used to visually oppose Press’s most stunning qualities, Blunt’s pouted lips, darker and noticeably bouncier hair, painting a picture of a defining opposite in physicality to the hero; one that Pawlikowski uses as an indicator as to the many differences that the two characters hold, each defined by (in excess of everything else) wealth.

Indeed, Blunt’s Tamsin is so in opposition to Press’s Mona that she is introduced as if born of sunlight, shot from the below point of view of Mona as she rides horse-back through the Yorkshire countryside, her face coming into focus as her head blocks out the sun. The majestic horse is instantly contrasted with Mona’s own engine-less moped as the duo ride down hill together; a moment indicative of not only the vast differences in wealth that shall come to define many aspects of their relationship, but one that through the use of transport paints a picture of Mona being out of control of her descent downhill into the relationship as Tamsin remains entirely in control of the beast she descends with.

In My Summer of Love, the indication is always that Mona’s life shall forever be changed by what is to Tamsin a summer fling. Mona is tied to her locality, whereas Tamsin is there for just a brief moment before returning to boarding school, and as the narrative unravels discrepancies in Tamsin’s stories, so comes to the light the difference in severity that one summer of love can have for a person confined to a life of poverty and struggle, and one free of financial restriction. Indeed, the title in of itself tells of this inevitability, but watching it unravel in conjunction with themes of abuse and religious persecution is truly extraordinary.

Pawlikowski’s work has never seemed so light on the surface as in My Summer of Love, but to those familiar with his work it will be no surprise that the true focus of this English language debut lies in the darkness hiding beneath. Aside from the reliable experience of Paddy Considine as Mona’s brother Phil, Press and Blunt are almost entirely alone for the whole film, and as such Pawlikowski is able to paint onto them a series of opposites that define them amongst the thematic explorations of his narrative and visual storytelling, the duo becoming as much at one with the existential intention of the piece as they are individuals worthy of connecting to in their own right.

My Summer of Love ponders; who are we to love? To expect anything extraordinary for ourselves? And, in doing so, it challenges the status quo of romantic idealism in every way that it possibly can, from gender to wealth, physical appearance to location. This is truly a phenomenal, way-too-often overlooked entry into the canon of British film and indeed the director’s own filmography; a story of love and all of the existentialism that comes with it from one of the greatest working in the industry today.

20/24

Submarine (2010)
Director: Richard Ayoade
Screenwriter: Richard Ayoade
Starring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine

Richard Ayoade’s darkly humourous adaptation of Joe Dunthorpe’s coming of age novel Submarine is a movie that feels like a song by The Smiths wrapped in the sort of self-aware cinematic tropes that paint a picture of teenage nothingness as if it is most special and unique in its intricacies. It is the sound of our melancholic youth, a bright spot in the tragedy of our own ordinariness and an ode to the want-to-be intellectual in each of us; a film with the type of honesty, flair and quietly humourous tone we can each only wish for our own life stories, and a bloody good watch at that.

Craig Roberts is a revelation as bumbling intellectual misfit teenager Oliver Tate, a 15 year old school pupil with a talent for accidentally falling into problems both way larger than he can truly comprehend and way less meaningful than he may first assume, something each of us can identify with should we search our true selves for long enough. It is in his misfiring quest to solve such issues and bring about the most solace to himself that the story moves forward, introducing parents Jill (Hawkins) and Lloyd (Taylor) as well as manic pixie dream girl Jordana, the sort alternative, Doc Martens wearing teenager who deals with a crush by insulting them and is played pitch perfectly by Yasmin Paige.

The quietly established setting of 80s Swansea provides some visually stunning backdrops, the scenery of which is referenced directly by the lead as ‘making him feel nothing’ and is subsequently pushed to one side as roaming shots of his favoured walks by a dock or on the beach take its place, the autumnal hills instead being referenced only as notes of displeasure from there on out. The key settings of Oliver’s home and school juxtapose this with a blatantly clean and almost impersonal aesthetic that comes to represent the adulthood awaiting this pretentious teenager in his poster-laden bedroom filled with props like typewriters and cassette players, just in case you’d forgotten that he’s the second coming of Morrissey.

Like Morrissey, Oliver is flawed and at times difficult to like, but there’s something so inherently genuine about the character that he’s identifiable and easy to empathise with; his self-narrated journey mixing self-deprecating humour, harsh realities and fantasy elements to reinforce he is a person worth rooting for. Side characters like Paddy Considine’s Graham and Oliver’s own mother and father come to shape his story through their actions but they’re seen with an intellectualised innocence of youth that is somewhat magically captured in the work of Richard Ayoade and his actors, thus ensuring that Submarine is more than a movie time capsule or celebratory coming of age film, but instead an honest intrinsic analysis of how downright self-centred each of us can be in our youth.

Clearly taking inspiration from the cinematography and editing techniques of the French New Wave, Submarine lends itself to the sort of audience Oliver would inevitably become and as such transcends its genre in many ways, the quality of its presentation also ensuring it isn’t bogged down alongside so many other British releases of its time. With Alex Turner providing an original soundtrack to what is a genuinely engaging and funny story about the insignificance yet overwhelming feeling of youth, Submarine offers something unique and interesting that is certainly worth exploring whether you’re 15 or 55.

17/24