“Beautiful Thing” tells the story of two teenage boys, neighbors
in a London high-rise housing project, who gradually become aware that they are
homosexual. But a funny thing happens: the most interesting scenes involve the
characters around them, who all but steal the movie. The boys lives contain
few surprises (it is clear from the start what the one big surprise is going to
be), but from the other characters there is one astonishment after another.
The
boys are Jamie (Glenn Berry), an introverted, quiet type, and Ste (Scott Neal),
an athlete. Jamie becomes aware that he s drawn to Ste, but does nothing about
it until one night when Ste is beaten (as usual) by his alcoholic father, and
Jamie s mother takes pity and allows Ste to sleep at their house. Ste and Jamie
fairly quickly discover how they feel about each other, and there is a touching
scene where they study a copy of Gay Times magazine, trying to figure out what
they re supposed to know about homosexuality. (They gues