ROSY MCEWEN IN BLUE JEAN

TRAILER

Elegant, timely historical film about the difficulty of being gay

The ACLU reports it's tracking 491 anti- LGBTQ bills in the US during this year's legislative session - a sign of an anti-gay backlash that sweeps the world. Blue Jean, about the quiet turmoil of a closeted lesbian PE teacher in Newcastle, in the UK, in 1988, the era of Margaret Thatcher's repressive clause 28, is stunningly relevant. It also happens to be a beautifully made, stylish film, with a rivetingly subtle performance by Rosy McEwen as Jean, the teacher in question.

Blue Jean is a pleasure to the eye. So is Rosy as Jean. A slim bottle blonde, she is the essence of cool, and keeps the "ladies" in her classes and the netball team she coaches neatly controlled with calm orders, friendly, yet controlled. Her clothes are neutral but stylish; so stylish one isn't, and her colleagues presumably aren't, likely to see them as mannish. (Was Coco Chanel mannish? Elegance is beyond simple gender identification.)

But Jean leads a carefully segregated double life. The spacious, cool images and her "blue" look aren't after all symbolic of freedom but repression, of control. In the other world of out, fun-loving lesbians Jean tentatively belongs to in her secret off-hours, she has a butch, cropped-haired, tattooed older, out girlfriend called Viv (Kerrie Hayes) - and this world is dark and messy, with plenty of kissing, hoop-la, drinking, and fun. At home Viv and Jean make love, which the film is at pains to show. This is, after all, a simple and basic issue film about a sexual minority and it has to touch bases thus.

Gradually we identify with Jean's impossible dilemma. She cannot be open, and her lesbian life and love for Viv can't be fulfilled. She completely hides Viv: when Viv calls her at work, she hangs up, and later tells Viv, "You can't call me at work." This is not Jean's weakness. It's fact. Rumbles on TV and on the air are constant of Thatcher's anti-LGBTQ law being put into effect. Clause 28 was a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" - much like what conservative states of the US are putting into action today. Were Jean's lesbianism to be exposed, she would immediately lose her job. And she loves her job and is good at it.

Oakley, whose directorial debut this is, strikes a balance between Jean's two worlds. Scenes between Jean and Viv are crucial, and ultimately wrenchingly painful. Equally important and pivotal for the plot is what happens at work.

A girl called Lois (Lucy Halliday) appears in PE class who changes everything because she will bridge Jean's two worlds and thus destroy their precarious equilibrium. As Lois, Halliday is almost absurdly a contrast to McEwen: full-hipped, with a long dark mop of hair, extravagant of gesture, provocative. She also turns out somewhat unexpectedly to be athletic and becomes in key player on the netball team. Then Jean is at the lesbian club, and Lois appears there. Later there is an incident between Lois and another girl, Siobhan (Lydia Page) and Jean, to protect herself, betrays Lois. Part of the brilliance of Blue Jean is that Jean winds up being so unsympathetic, even a little despicable, and yet we sympathize with her, because Oakley so tightly and clearly depicts the trap she is in.

Rosy McEwen provides a lesson in understatement that is riveting and builds to the end. All the other cast members deliver excellent performances, with Kerrie Hayes notably sympathetic as Viv. But all the focus is on Jean and this is McEwen's film. It's rarely that one sees such heartrending economy of expression and gesture. The whole film, in its restrained elegance, is as if an outgrowth of Jean's making the best of repression - till it threatens to destroy her. What's shocking is to realize this story could have been lived with slight variations in the 1950's - and can come true again today. A thought provoking and highly original film about the heartbreak of living gay in a repressive world, and one of the best movies of the year so far.

Blue Jean, 97 mins., premiered at Venice, Giornate degli autori Sept. 2, 2022. Shown also at dozens of other festivals and released (internet) in many countries. US theatrical release June 9, 2023 (NYC) and June 16, Bay Area. Metacritic rating: 86%.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.