Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes, Lucy Halliday
British writer-director Georgia Oakley’s frank, searing and remarkably accomplished feature debut follows a lesbian teacher facing homophobia at a pivotal point in British history.
England, 1988: Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government is about to pass Section 28, a law stigmatising homosexuality in education and forcing Jean (Rosy McEwen), a P.E. teacher at a secondary school in north-east, to live a double life. It’s crucial her employers don’t find out she’s gay, but at the same time, the secrecy is alienating her from her own life. As pressure mounts, the arrival of a new girl (Lucy Halliday) at Jean’s school catalyses a crisis that challenges her to her core.
It’s easy to forget just how toxically homophobic British life was in the not-too-distant past, and Oakley’s film is a pleasing ode to queer resilience at the especially poisonous moment of the Section 28 ruling. A forthright Thatcher-era period piece prompting reflections on our national treatment of homosexuality, placing this past in dialogue with the present, Blue Jean is also a beautifully photographed, pleasingly complex and poignant character study of a woman unsure how she wants to proceed – or be perceived – in her own life.
