Beautiful Thing

Conceived as a city for the 21st century, the brutalist social housing estate of Thamesmead in London had already served as the setting for Stanley Kubrick’s *A Clockwork Orange*. Twenty-five years later, Hettie MacDonald sets her coming-of-age film *Beautiful Thing*—based on a play—in the same grey stairwells and connecting corridors. However, this time in the colourful, hopeful atmosphere of the 1990s. It is sweltering: Jamie hides his homosexuality, whilst his single mother, a goddess of quick-wittedness, dreams of owning her own pub. When the boy next door, Ste, is brutally beaten up by his brother, she takes him in and puts him up in Jamie’s room. Beautiful Thing is full of sharp dialogue, and the eccentric supporting characters – such as Leah, who (whether drug-induced or out of sheer boredom) believes she is Mama Cass – ensure this exploration of homosexuality and prejudice remains timeless. (A.K.L.)