Nonureva
Really Surprised!
2freensel
I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.
Joanna Mccarty
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Zlatica
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Irishchatter
I have to say Steven's speech was the most outstanding speech I've ever heard about being gay at school. I swear, it just makes you teary because young people still these day think negative of their sexuality. Yes there are homo phobics everywhere, but people should only think of themselves and not worry about what they think.I was very disappointed in John for not being open to himself and that he took his so-called friends side but not Steve's side. Steven was so good to him and honestly, any man would have him as his boyfriend. John let him down completely and thats why I think the ending didn't have a good happy ending. I wish Steven would report the bullies to the principal as they made his life hell and his relationship even more worse. I then thought the father didn't want to help at all. He just made a fuss on his son's choice of love. At least the mother had common sense.I loved Linda, she's like the friend you seriously want to pal around with. Yes she is cheeky, however she will always be on your side. She would really put a smile on your face and she was so good to Steven even if she didn't want to. She was better off not dating her driving instructor since he didn't have a cope on. At least Steven and herself had each other when they need a shoulder to cry on!Good movie but try not to be disappointed that Steven and John aren't rekindling their relationship.
Mark Dunlap
I'm writing this review more than a dozen years after I first saw "Get Real," and it is still my favorite movie ever. I've never seen any other movie that seemed so downright profound.The movie affected me on two levels: it's a very touching romance with an ending that is so very sad; I often want to re-write the ending so that these guys can and will stay together. I find it totally believable that Steven and John would fall in love with one another, and I believe it every time they express their love to each other. One of the most romantic, albeit brief, moments is when John invites Steven to "come live with me." But the romantic story has such a sad ending; surely there has to be a way for Steven to forgive John for the violence that John inflicted in the locker room, and forgiveness CAN happen if John tells the truth about himself to his parents and friends.That leads me to talk about the other way the movie affects me; the movie conveys, as its implicit moral, how important it is to reveal the truth about yourself to others, to come out. When I saw the movie circa 2001 or so, I found Steven's speech in the assembly hall was utterly inspiring. That speech, and the issues involved in why Steven and John break up, made me decide that I'm going to tell the truth to more people whom I have not previously told the whole truth, that I'm not going to stay closeted from anyone who deserves to know the truth. Indeed, a couple of years after I first saw the movie, I revealed that I'm gay to a room full of straight people, only one of whom already knew it.The tears John is shedding the first night he spends with Steven - the tears that start flowing when he admits to himself that he is gay - are based on two emotions: fear and shame. The fear is that he'll lose the love and support of his parents and he'll lose his status as the school's "Head Boy." But he's also ashamed of just plain being gay. John asks, through tear-filled eyes, as he looks into Steven's eyes, "What's wrong with me?" And in an important scene later, when Steven is angry with John for going out on a date with Christina, John confesses (with sadness in his eyes), "I guess I went out with Christina tonight because I needed to feel good about myself." The most important reason why Steven and John break up at the end is not that John is afraid of being found out, but because of the contrast between Steven's gay pride and John's gay shame. Steven said (the night of John's date with Christina)"I want you to be proud of us, but you're not! You're ashamed to be seen with me!" Even though John then promised to talk to Steven and treat him like a friend while they're in school, that is not what Steven meant by "be proud of us." John can't take any pride in his love for Steven unless and until John gets over the feeling of shame in just being gay.So that is why I fell in love with this movie: it sends profound messages about the meaning of gay pride and in the importance of telling people the truth about yourself. Steven could have spared Jessica some heartache if he had told her, when Jessica gave Steven a kiss, that he's gay, and he would have told her the truth if it weren't for his (implied) promise to John that he was going to keep it a secret. Steven's desire to tell his parents and his classmates the truth about himself started to grow once he and John fell in love. That's when his gay pride began to grow, and it was why he wrote the little essay about what is it like to be a gay teenager.I have only a few complaints about the movie. One is a scene, at about 44 minutes in, that starts with John saying to Steven, "Please, help me. I'm worried; I'm confused," and which culminates in a tender kiss. This scene lasted 6 minutes and I think the director/actors could have trimmed it a little bit, making it 5 minutes instead. That scene has about one minute of monologue by John that seemed unnecessary. And that scene is followed, in terms of when we next see them, by a scene in which Steven says to John "You finished all the bacon yesterday," which means that they've spent an entire weekend together - two consecutive nights, and they've had breakfast together two consecutive mornings - but the whole day in between is missing. I would want to hear what Steven and John talk about the first day they spend an entire day together, a day right after John has finally admitted to himself that he's gay. Finally, I'm disappointed that, in the very last scene of the movie, Steven is smiling and joking as he gets into Linda's car and goes for a drive, as if he got over the grief of his breakup with John almost immediately after it happened. He had just been sniffling and fighting back tears a moment before. He got over a major heartache much too quickly.But a few minor quibbles like that are only worth mentioning because I do love the whole movie so much. I even think a lot of people who have moral objections to homosexuality and to the concept of gay pride could be touched by this movie.
Jason Shaw
This is one of the best gay coming of age drama's to come out of the British movie industry in recent times, well if 1999 can be considered recent? It created quite a stir on the film festival circuits including Edinburgh, Toronto and Sundance. Pulled in acclaim and derision in equal measure from that odd bread of human called movie critics, yet were not quite so divided and loved this kooky British story of love and coming out from 1999.Sixteen year-old lanky Steven Carter is a boy with a secret, he cannot tell anyone he likes boys and not girls, except of course his slightly chubby best pal Linda, who seems old before her years. Oh and the occasional older bloke he picks up at the various public bogs around town, just to add that sleazy aspect to gay life that movies like to hit with. He wants to be a writer (Don't we all sugar!) and is already on the school newspaper team. He also cannot tell anyone that he has the hot's for John, the school hunk and head boy, who without out a doubt would be called a jock if this were an American made picture. He's the sporty handsome guy with prospects that your mum longed for you to bring home after school or before a date, except he's straight. John's current squeeze is a model, but he is not short of admirers, seems the whole school get moist whenever he is around.Before long, John and Steven finally meet, not at school, but in the cubicle of the local cottage, weird, odd, yes, I mean how many times do you strike up relationships with people you bump into during a random fumble in the dirty park bogs? However, hey, this is fiction and these sorts of things happen, besides, it helps the story develop and I am not being harsh, just honest. So anyway, as I say they strike up a friendship away from the seedy toilet sex and I don't mean swapping Match sticker cards at break time either, it's a full on love fest. However, this is Britain, supposedly modern times, this is school and John is supposedly straight, so they've got to keep their little romantic liaison secret, but as we all know, with secrets come lies and deceit and what a tangled web we weave when trying to keep our private life away from public eyes. There is a lovely little scene at the school prop when they dance with each other with their eyes alone, in reality, they are dancing with their respective prop dates, but their eyes are locked on each other, which is both touching and oddly strange. However, things all work themselves out in the end, with a few little spills along the way. It really is a nice little film, even though I seem to knock it a bit, it has some important messages, not least when it raises the spectre of homophobic bullying and the harsh bitter reality of classroom taunts and sports field aggression. Dark and light go together in this film, with comic moments and serious situations simmer along side by side quite nicely. There are some weak jokes in the script that reply on old and overused campy gags you would expect from Julian Clary or Graham Norton. Not often will a films DVD cover give the whole game away, usually it's just a slight flavour, but Get Real seems to not want you to watch by spelling out in American lingo most of the films plots and interests on the cover 'What if you can't avoid sexuality, guilt, peer pressure, lies, bigots, rumours, misunderstandings, nerds, jocks, romance, loneliness, shame and insecurity? Your only choice is to get real. School's out and so is Steven Carter.' It is such a shame because you know it has already put half the audience off, and that is the half that would really benefit from seeing it. Get Real is a lovely film, some key issues are brushed upon; other's mysteriously absent, but on the whole an engaging movie of surprising depth. It has the ability to make you laugh aloud at the funny bits and tear up at some of the not so happy bits. I am sure the appeal of this movie has much to do with the reminiscent quality its storyline evokes in much of the collective minds of the audience. Many of us have had similar experiences at school, dealt with the same crap and overcome the taunts and teen angst as we battled our way through the choice of either staying safe and ultimately unrewarded in the closet. Alternatively, risking the abuse, possible gay bashing and isolation of coming out and being the only gay in the school. Read more and find out where this film made it in the Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time book, search on Amazon for Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time, or visit - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FU7HPO
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Extremely well acted with young actors that know their job: to make us believe the story is true, is what happens everyday now and then and from time to time more often than we think. Secondary schools of any type are big boxes where there are plenty of closets and they tie up and throw those they don't like in those closets for them to rot, to cry, to suffer, to be miserable. Don't believe one moment it is only a question of sexual orientation. It can be the way you dress, the music you listen to, or even for teachers the way you speak to the students or the way you may put your hand on the students' shoulders.This film is perfect and so British indeed. It touches the right points and it plucks the right strings. How can a 16 year old young man, or boy if you prefer, come out of the closet and just trust himself, trust his family, trust his school, trust the world even, and know he will be accepted the way he is and the way he feels happy? That's the worst part of it. Of course the parents know there is something bothering the boy, or the young man if you prefer. Of course the teachers feel it too and even know it. The other students just feel it, decide that it is what they feel it is, and most of them, at least most of those who will say anything, will condemn the young man, or the boy if you prefer. And don't even imagine it is not the same thing for girls, or young women if you prefer.But at the same time the only way to get out of the closet is to open the door with a bang and to let everyone know that from now on they better not walk on the boy's, or the young man's if you prefer, prick and even raise one single finger to block the way, otherwise their "cubes" as they say in CSI will be mashed to a pulp. It takes crazy courage for the first one. It takes courage for the one hundred next ones and when you reach one thousand you can finally start finding it nearly natural. But it will be natural only when you reach the million of out-of-the-closet-tall-walkers. And tall you need to walk.I regret that this simple question of the freedom to love who you want to love and who wants to love you back, no matter who that one is has become a religious question, a political question, a philosophical question, or whatever other label you can put on that. It is none of these and it is no other classification you may invent. It is only a question of sentiments, feelings, emotions, passions, empathy and liberty. It is a basic human right. Everyone has the right to love everyone else who accepts that love and loves them back.I have been dealing with men, or women, in the closet, no matter what closet it may be, all my life. Some of my university professor colleagues told me I was not supposed to know who is Jewish, who is Moslem, who is LGBT, or whatever, and that the students are not supposed to tell. Some professors are still living on the "don't ask don't tell" syndrome, you know that cowardly compromise Bill Clinton invented to make everyone forget what was happening at the time in the Oval Office.And now this DADT shameful legislation has been dropped all the fundamentalist brains in the world consider marriage is for sex and sex is for procreation, and that there is no other dimension in sex and in marriage. As you can see love has disappeared for these brains that are indeed no brains. You make love but you do not love. For them everyone on this planet, and sooner or later they are going to extend this silly ideology to the moon or to mars, has to wear the only penguin costume that is allowed by the necessity to make spermatozoa and eggs meet and fertilize each other. If you use a French letter, not to say a condom, a pill of any sort, a diaphragm or, horrible horror of horrors, vanity of vanities, an abortion you become a killer, a murderer, an assassin, some one who should be stoned on market day on the market square in every village or neighbourhood in the world.Yeah it is nothing but love and love is a passion, an emotion, a feeling, a sentiment, something that makes your mind rev up and then take off at cosmic speed and in that phenomenal power and force there might be for some a sexual dimension but there is no obligation for that dimension to exist and be experienced by all the people who are in love, who love one another. To make love is not even a plus. It is another dimension because then you lose your head, you loosen your mind and you blaze your soul tracks to let your hormones take over and your endocrine glands, you may chose the one you prefer, empty themselves.Actually it seems to be a syndrome that concerns the fundamentalists because for them love cannot exist outside the only sexual relation they accept – read my lips even if my mouth is full – and anything that is pricking outside and on the side of this square definition makes them retch: the poor darlings, my heart is bleeding for them, and I applaud all those who make them vomit proving that for them it is always a question of emptying the endocrine glands, but in their case the wrong ones and the wrong way.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU