“Not everything’s political,” sighs Jean to her girlfriend in this touching and wonderfully acted drama. As we’re in Thatcher’s Britain during the fevered days of the Clause 28 protests, we know these words will come back to haunt this sensitive young woman.
Jean (Rosy McEwen) is a PE teacher at a Tyneside school where her personal life is becoming increasingly political due to new Tory legislation which outlawed the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools.
While Jean seems confident with her lesbian friends while playing pool in her town’s gay club, she is painfully guarded with family, colleagues and pupils.
But she is under pressure to take a side when confident gay pupil Lois (Lucy Halliday) is falsely accused of sexually assaulting a girl in the showers. If Jean sticks up for her, will she put herself in the firing line?
Debut writer/director Georgia Oakley doesn’t go searching for easy solutions and McEwen makes us feel the weight of this poor woman’s dilemma with a nuanced and wonderfully empathetic performance.
They are both bolstered by great work from the costume and art departments.
Blue Jean looks and feels like a 35-year-old drama. Thankfully, Jean’s problems are very much of their time too.
- Blue Jean, Cert 15, In cinemas now
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