Pride (2014) ***1/4

In theory, a good story is a good story, and whether it really happened shouldn’t affect whether it’s a good movie. But if you’d thought first-time screenwriter Stephen Beresford had simply invented a tale about a group of gay-rights activists who, all on their own, decided to raise money for striking rural miners, it’d have seemed rather unlikely and strange. The 1984 National Union of Mineworkers strike is well-remembered in Britain and were a marker of the changes that came to the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  But this Pride, which shares its title with a 2007 film about a Philadelphia swim team, is more likely to remind you of working-class underdog stories like The Full Monty and Billy Elliot than of a more overtly political film.

Beresford and director Matthew Warchus stick to the personal, showing the unlikely path by which a small group of London-based activists wound up in an out-of-the-way town in Wales. At first, it seems like the main character might be young, closeted Joe (George MacKay), but the other characters, especially loud-and-proud Mark (Ben Schnetzer), and spiky-haired Steph, the sole lesbian (Faye Marsay), get about equal attention. Despite plenty of humorous moments, the accent is on the personalities, not fish-out-of-water stereotypes. The men and women of the town exhibit the range of reactions you might expect, from deep hostility to unmitigated gratitude toward their unexpected benefactors. The ubiquitous Bill Nighy stands out as a man who seems deeply uncomfortable with all of this, yet remains unfailingly polite.

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viewed 8/29/14 10 am at Ritz 5; posted 10/9/14

Made in Dagenham (***)

Women in the United States got equality under the law by a kind of accident— a ban on sex discrimination was added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by opponents who thought doing so would kill the bill. In the UK, there was still nothing in 1968 to keep Ford Motor Company from paying its female employees—who, we’re told, numbered 87 as against 55,000 males—less than men doing similar work. This film, in entertaining fashion, tells the story of how a strike by seamstresses against Ford in suburban London began the movement that changed the law.

The subject matter may suggest something altogether serious, but it’s more of a crowd-pleaser in the way that, say, Erin Brokovich was. Sally Hawkins plays the fictional heroine, who has Erin’s spunk, if not her sexuality. The director, Nigel Cole, is best known for Calendar Girls and the Ashton Kutcher-Amanda Peet romance A Lot Like You. Despite having a different writer (William Ivory), this has much the flavor of Calendar Girls, being a celebration of feminine virtue and (in this case) the working class. Typical of the light humor is an early scene in which one of the women sneaks away from a company function to shag her boyfriend. “Chop, chop, or we’ll miss the buffet,” she tells him. It is, after all, the swinging ’60s.

At the same time, the movie presents the drama clearly enough to keep from drifting off into girl-power mush. It doesn’t, for example, present all of the men as opponents of change. Bob Hoskins plays a union rep who is the women’s staunchest supporter. The film shows how the union itself, and the ruling Labour Party, were reluctant to take up the women’s cause. Miranda Richardson plays Barbara Castle, the cabinet minister who interceded on the women’s behalf. And Hawkins gets a role nearly as good as her brilliant turn in Happy-Go-Lucky.

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viewed 1/6/11 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 1/23/11