1000 Tiny Birds

Blue Jean (2022)

2023-02-11

Having been sorely disappointed by the state of British social realist cinema for the last few years (a brief tangent: the last two Ken Loach films - I, Daniel Blake and Sorry You Were Out - are sorely overrated, distinctly not good, and have frankly regressive messages at times at odds with what you would hope for), Blue Jean was a very welcome outlier. Set in the times of Section 28, Blue Jean follows a lesbian PE teacher who - inevitably - faces the prospect of living a double life every day. Naturally, for there to be justifiable enough drama to warrant a feature film, a conflict between the two arises. Georgia Oakley deftly balances how Jean struggles both internally and externally, questioning both her own self and her own actions, and drawing the two together well. Rosy McEwen turns in a star performance, ably shifting between the various emotions required throughout the film. It’s a lovingly drawn film, honest without taking a hammer to the subtlety of the piece - no one is coming away from this thinking Section 28 was a good thing (you hope), but neither are you going to feel lectured. It’s not quite kitchen sink drama, but it fulfils a lot of that in an immensely satisfying way.