Rosy McEwen in Blue Jean (Magnolia Pictures)

Prepare to settle in for a night of lukewarm tea, bad lighting, and Cilla Black on the telly. Sound exciting? And if it’s not Cilla warbling inane pop songs, it’s a member of Parliament thundering on about the evils of homosexuality. Life in provincial 1980s northern England is grim enough here, but if you’re a down-low lesbian, it’s well-nigh unbearable. Georgia Oakley’s debut film traces a young woman’s journey out of the closet, with the Margaret Thatcher–era anti-gay legislation Clause 28 rumbling in the background. This moody work seeks to evoke an atmosphere of repression, and succeeds almost too well.

Jean Newman (Rosy McEwen) is a gym teacher at a drab, under-resourced school in Newcastle. Her days are spent wrangling pupils and her nights hanging with girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) at the local gay pub, home of a supportive but limited social scene. Jean hides bluff, working-class, and out Viv from her family, not only because of the nature of their relationship but possibly because of social status; Viv notices the snub. Gray tones and Jean’s authentically shabby bedsit surroundings suggest low-level depression.

Jean’s already strained life starts to feel uncomfortable as Clause 28–related TV and radio chatter reviling gay people floats over the airwaves, following her around 1984–style. (The fruity voice of odious Thatcher delivers a typically contemptuous jab.) Matters grow even more tense as a teenager named Lois (Lucy Halliday) joins Jean’s gym class. Soon Lois is hanging out at the gay bar, freaking Jean out. When Lois enters a charged, hostile faceoff with a devious fellow student and lesbian-baiter, their conflict threatens to blow the lid off Jean’s closet for the whole school to see. Jean will have to make decisions about how open she is willing to be and whether she can start groping toward a more honest, fulfilling life. 

Some reviewers see parallels between today’s anti-gay and -trans initiatives in U.S. states like Florida and Clause 28, which primarily forbid local authorities such as schools to normalize or promote homosexuality to young people. Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether these comparisons ring true. To me, the sluggish, subservient world evoked here feels so different from the internet-humming present day that the comparison doesn’t feel quite right.

The movie’s perspective in some ways seems to come from that earlier time, though. For a film that aims to make a heartfelt plea on behalf of gay people, Blue Jean comes close to serving up a few back-dated tropes itself. Jean is a gym teacher—what could be more lesbian than that? Lesbian teachers would likely keep encounters with students businesslike to prevent accusations of corrupting the young, but a scene where Jean treats Lois’s injured leg throbs with indiscreet emotion on school grounds. Gay relationships are drama-prone, with a blowup kicked off by a trip for two to the pub restroom. Authority figures, from the Houses of Parliament to the school tearoom, rebuke Jean for being gay, and then the movie punishes her for not coming out fast enough. Although Blue Jean reflects 1980s malaise, another and different aspect to the era’s gay spirit was to ignore homophobic threats or even mock them. That defiant spark seems to be gone amid all the heaven-knows-I’m-miserable-now period detail.  

Against the uptight and woebegone Jean’s trepidation and eventual reckoning with herself, a force of nature stands out: Viv, who is down to earth, affectionate, open about her sexuality, and content where she is in life. Perhaps a sequel could focus on this character dating, boozing, and breaking hearts. After all, the lesbian canon desperately needs some lesbians who like themselves.