I have to say Steven's speech was the most outstanding speech I've ever heard about being gay at school. I swear, it just makes you teary because young people still these day think negative of their sexuality. Yes there are homo phobics everywhere, but people should only think of themselves and not worry about what they think.I was very disappointed in John for not being open to himself and that he took his so-called friends side but not Steve's side. Steven was so good to him and honestly, any man would have him as his boyfriend. John let him down completely and thats why I think the ending didn't have a good happy ending. I wish Steven would report the bullies to the principal as they made his life hell and his relationship even more worse. I then thought the father didn't want to help at all. He just made a fuss on his son's choice of love. At least the mother had common sense.I loved Linda, she's like the friend you seriously want to pal around with. Yes she is cheeky, however she will always be on your side. She would really put a smile on your face and she was so good to Steven even if she didn't want to. She was better off not dating her driving instructor since he didn't have a cope on. At least Steven and herself had each other when they need a shoulder to cry on!Good movie but try not to be disappointed that Steven and John aren't rekindling their relationship.

This is one of the best gay coming of age drama's to come out of the British movie industry in recent times, well if 1999 can be considered recent? It created quite a stir on the film festival circuits including Edinburgh, Toronto and Sundance. Pulled in acclaim and derision in equal measure from that odd bread of human called movie critics, yet were not quite so divided and loved this kooky British story of love and coming out from 1999.Sixteen year-old lanky Steven Carter is a boy with a secret, he cannot tell anyone he likes boys and not girls, except of course his slightly chubby best pal Linda, who seems old before her years. Oh and the occasional older bloke he picks up at the various public bogs around town, just to add that sleazy aspect to gay life that movies like to hit with. He wants to be a writer (Don't we all sugar!) and is already on the school newspaper team. He also cannot tell anyone that he has the hot's for John, the school hunk and head boy, who without out a doubt would be called a jock if this were an American made picture. He's the sporty handsome guy with prospects that your mum longed for you to bring home after school or before a date, except he's straight. John's current squeeze is a model, but he is not short of admirers, seems the whole school get moist whenever he is around.Before long, John and Steven finally meet, not at school, but in the cubicle of the local cottage, weird, odd, yes, I mean how many times do you strike up relationships with people you bump into during a random fumble in the dirty park bogs? However, hey, this is fiction and these sorts of things happen, besides, it helps the story develop and I am not being harsh, just honest. So anyway, as I say they strike up a friendship away from the seedy toilet sex and I don't mean swapping Match sticker cards at break time either, it's a full on love fest. However, this is Britain, supposedly modern times, this is school and John is supposedly straight, so they've got to keep their little romantic liaison secret, but as we all know, with secrets come lies and deceit and what a tangled web we weave when trying to keep our private life away from public eyes. There is a lovely little scene at the school prop when they dance with each other with their eyes alone, in reality, they are dancing with their respective prop dates, but their eyes are locked on each other, which is both touching and oddly strange. However, things all work themselves out in the end, with a few little spills along the way. It really is a nice little film, even though I seem to knock it a bit, it has some important messages, not least when it raises the spectre of homophobic bullying and the harsh bitter reality of classroom taunts and sports field aggression. Dark and light go together in this film, with comic moments and serious situations simmer along side by side quite nicely. There are some weak jokes in the script that reply on old and overused campy gags you would expect from Julian Clary or Graham Norton. Not often will a films DVD cover give the whole game away, usually it's just a slight flavour, but Get Real seems to not want you to watch by spelling out in American lingo most of the films plots and interests on the cover 'What if you can't avoid sexuality, guilt, peer pressure, lies, bigots, rumours, misunderstandings, nerds, jocks, romance, loneliness, shame and insecurity? Your only choice is to get real. School's out and so is Steven Carter.' It is such a shame because you know it has already put half the audience off, and that is the half that would really benefit from seeing it. Get Real is a lovely film, some key issues are brushed upon; other's mysteriously absent, but on the whole an engaging movie of surprising depth. It has the ability to make you laugh aloud at the funny bits and tear up at some of the not so happy bits. I am sure the appeal of this movie has much to do with the reminiscent quality its storyline evokes in much of the collective minds of the audience. Many of us have had similar experiences at school, dealt with the same crap and overcome the taunts and teen angst as we battled our way through the choice of either staying safe and ultimately unrewarded in the closet. Alternatively, risking the abuse, possible gay bashing and isolation of coming out and being the only gay in the school. Read more and find out where this film made it in the Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time book, search on Amazon for Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time, or visit - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FU7HPO

It would be so easy to write a tepid or even downright bad review of "Get Real", but, for all its faults - poor acting overall and a script full of clichés including a speech that seems to spring from a desire to give the film an upbeat ending rather than one the character would probably have made, I am not going to. For this is rather a sweet little film with such a likable central character, Stephen, a most appealing youth caught up in the problems of "coming out" in a mainly homophobic society, that you somehow just go along with the journeys he makes toward understanding himself and the understanding of others. Indeed the fact that he finds the former journey the easier is in many ways a measure of the film's basic honesty. So sit back and enjoy a 90's message film ( I imagine attitudes are a shade more enlightened now), strangely couched in the comfy British style of "Gregory's Girl" and occasionally just as funny. For this is a feel-good treat, all the more worthy for trying to say something vital about understanding our fellow human beings and doing it rather well.

"Be realistic, demand the impossible". Why not? Sometimes being realistic means, indeed, to have no creative freedom and above all no real desire to escape ideological imprisonment.When Steven, a 16 year old student, starts frequenting public toilets hoping to hook up and have random sex with unknown men, he looks aloof and somehow emotionally unattached. His only confident is Linda, a girl somewhat ostracized because of her weight, and they come to a conclusion: no matter how hard they've tried, love has not been a part of their lives.One day, in one of those public toilets the British seem so keen on visiting, he runs into John, another student from his high school. Except that John is not just another student, he happens to be the Golden Boy, not only is he the best athlete and the most handsome boy, he is also rich and very popular. Of course, John neutralizes possible misunderstandings by explaining that he just happened to be there. When Steven, disappointed and embarrassed, decides to depart, John asks him if his parents are home.In Steven's home, the game commences, or rather, what was already there comes to the surface. When John makes fun of a teddy bear in Steven's room, that soon leads into physical contact as Steven tries to retrieve the object from John's hands. Then, after being on top of each other, breathing hard and unmistakably excited, John proceeds to unbutton Steve's trousers and when they're about to kiss things get interrupted.The interruption is a symptom of society's intervention, which in this case does not take the form of an angry mob but rather the moral constraints that are deeply rooted in John's mind. If the gaze of the other defines us completely, then what must we do to be successfully inserted in society? For traditional psychoanalysis homosexuality has been a perversion, a mental illness, a condition that could be remedied, but it has also been the abject, id est, the vilest, the very lowest of the human condition. I would like to believe that much time has passed since then, but it's undeniable that some people, perhaps more than I would care to admit, continue to think as if they had been raised in the Victorian age.On the contrary, Steven has come to terms with his sexuality since he was 11. He has no doubts, no regrets. He feels only angry at the prejudiced people surrounding him at home, at school and everywhere in between. As his relationship with John progresses, they thrive to keep the secrecy, but the clandestine rendezvous and the constant hiding takes a toll on Steven. As John explains to him, they can do anything they want as long as no one else knows about it.Although at first this is hardly a limitation, soon the nature of the relationship will demand openness. Steven wants John to feel proud of them, of their relationship, he demands John to acknowledge him in school, not only outside. How long can they go keeping the secret? And is it really impossible to declare their love to everyone else? Be realistic, sometimes the impossible simply cannot be demanded for the very reason that it shouldn't have been deemed impossible in the first place.As the impossibility of accepting homosexuality is firmly placed in John's head, things will not be easy. But when other school kids start making enquiries and deductions, the entire relationship could come apart. Does this couple have what it takes to surmount seemingly unconquerable obstacles or was this a doomed affair from the very beginning?