Beautiful Thing

Beautiful Thing is a nice story of awakening sexuality and the thrill of first love between two neighbors in a London high rise. The twist in this story is that the main characters are boys. Although the movie does not take place in a perfect world, it has been criticized for not addressing too deeply the problems that homosexuals face. Instead director McDonald lets the story speak for itself while avoiding preachiness. The supporting characters are interesting and fill out the story well, although at times they overshadow the main story. My main problem: my brain wasn’t accustomed to the heavy British accents and I probably missed about one-fourth of the dialogue. The nudity and sexual content of this movie was so tame, I was surprised to see that it was rated R. If the characters had been heterosexual, it probably would have gotten a PG-13.