Get Real (1999)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Excellent but underrated film

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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

Pretty much the standard high school melodrama replete with the usual cast of characters: (a) gay boy who is out at least to himself and to (b) a girl confidante who is dealing with her own self-image issues, (c) the school jock/head boy who is in denial to himself and the world but suddenly can't keep his hands off character(a) as long as no one sees them, (d) the usual assortment of Neanderthal classmates & adults (e) a couple of confused, but sympathetic girl classmates who suddenly see the light and, of course, (f) the protective omniscient mother & incredulous, hostile, clueless father. Obviously it's been done before with varying degrees of success and with variations in the supporting cast, sometimes as comic-tragedy, sometimes as tragic-comedy, and always awash with angst, suspense & drama. This offering was fairly well done. The jock seemed overly mercurial and the main character at times seemed annoyingly insensitive to the jock's desire to protect his fragile self-image in the mean streets of secondary school, but then real people aren't always consistent with our expectations and they often display irrational self-defeating behavior. If you can't get enough of coming-of-age, rites-of-passage, high school soap operas, this is somewhat better than the average. On the other hand, if you give it a miss you needn't worry about the gap it'll leave in your résumé.

Some time back I was channel surfing and came across this film on satellite. I came in after the beginning and knew that I had missed the prologue. I waited to see it again but I could no longer find it. I now own a DVD of it.When I was the age of either male stars I did not have those problems. My parents had no control over my wanderings as I told them lies. They left me alone. I had many trysts and enjoyed them. I had many partners in the military but never picked up a trick from being in a communal shower. My partners had to be special. By that I mean he had to be intelligent but not necessarily physically attractive.I am a senior citizen and the object of my affection is only 27. He is well educated and extremely handsome. On a few occasions he eye kissed me. I pulled away due to our age difference. What can I do?

I cannot say enough about the power of this movie. With my own struggle with my sexuality, as well as the hiding that so many like me are forced into, this movie brought me to tears. There are so many things I wish could be different, both in my life and in how the movie played out, but both are surprisingly pleasant even as they are. I cannot say that this is the greatest piece of cinema ever created, from dialog to production values, many parts of the movie are askew (not to mention the often indecipherable British mumbling!), but it has given me hope that as a gay teenager I will someday find the type of love I am looking for.