Pride (2014)

Not every movie will immediately appeal to everyone. Sometimes this is because of the subject, but it can also be for the simple fact that the poster the movie is using doesn’t look appealing (which of course is very subjective). Before watching this film the only thing I had seen was its poster and based on that my expectation was that this would be a simple, maybe slightly funny British comedy. It didn’t appeal to me and if it wouldn’t have been part of the programming during a festival I went to I’d probably wouldn’t have seen it. But that’s the great thing about movie festivals: They give you an opportunity to see movies you normally will not check out yourself and in this case I’m happy I managed to catch it this way.

The story, even if it seems strange, based on true events and is set during the eighties when the miners in the United Kingdom were on strike. This often lead to confrontations with the police and neither the miners nor the government (lead by Margaret Thatcher) were willing to budge. The only way for the miners to continue to strike was to get support from others. They got money and food from various organisations. One which also wants to help is a London based group of gays and lesbians who start to collect money for them. The question is whether those tough men are willing to accept their help.

Pride has been very well made and despite its big number of characters manages to give each one of them enough screentime to make you care for them. Various serious issues are touched upon with a light touch, resulting in a lot of entertaining jokes. Together with some drama it strikes a delicate balance between emotions and manages to take its viewer on a very entertaining two hour journey. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and if I had done so based on the poster I would have missed out on a very good movie with an extremely solid cast.