Movie Review: BLUE JEAN

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: June 9th, 2023 / 02:45 AM

BLUE JEAN movie poster | ©2023 Magnolia Pictures

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes, Lucy Halliday
Writer: Georgia Oakley
Director: Georgia Oakley
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: June 9, 2023

BLUE JEAN is set in 1988 Newcastle, England. Margaret Thatcher is the British Prime Minister, and building walls in this largely working-class city are painted with slogans about making sure that children are being taught “traditional values.”

So, it’s thirty-five years ago, but some issues remain sadly resonant. Jean Newman (Rosy McEwen) is a teacher and sports coach at a secondary school (that’s high school for us U.S. folks). She is in her late twenties or early thirties, dyes her hair blonde, and lives with her cat.

We see Jean on the job. She’s good with the kids, and amiable with her fellow teachers, though she resolutely won’t go to the pub with them.

This is because Jean is a lesbian, who spends her evenings hanging out with her friends and playing pool at the local gay/lesbian bar. Jean’s girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) is out and proud, but at the start, she is understanding of Jean’s closeted life.

Then a new girl, Lois (Lucy Halliday), shows up at school. Jean helps Lois fit in on the basketball team. Then Lois shows up at the bar, underage, a lesbian herself. Jean panics.

BLUE JEAN is not at all about an inappropriate teacher/student romance. Instead, it’s a very plausible look at what can happen when a person’s instinct for self-protection conflicts with their ethics.

Indeed, if the story were told from Lois’s point of view rather than Jean’s, Jean would arguably be the villain. Director/writer Georgia Oakley takes the bold step of giving us a protagonist whose actions are almost ATONEMENT-level awful. We’re appalled, at the same time we believe the matter-of-fact way this rolls out.

There are also situations and dialogue that will be familiar from life to a lot of viewers who are either themselves or have family/friends involved in political movements that impact their lives. These may not be wholly original observations, but they feel true.

McEwen adroitly moves between her carefully calculated public mask, her good cheer among friends, and her private despair. Hayes gives warmth and practicality to Viv, and Halliday has honesty and vulnerability as young Lois.

Where BLUE JEAN falters is in its blurriness beyond Jean’s life. Jean seems to be the odd one out among her friends. There are no discussions of economic differences, we don’t know what any of them care about apart from hanging out at the bar – they don’t seem to have lives or interests outside of their sexuality. Jean is not just the only closeted member of her social group, she’s the only one who seems to have a paying profession.

Does being out and visible mean being literally unemployable? If so, is Jean supporting everyone else? This isn’t the implication. If not, what kinds of jobs do Viv and the others have? In a film where events revolve around matters of social class and employment, these details matter.

We also don’t get why it doesn’t occur to Jean to take certain steps late in the day. It may well be that Oakley wants to maintain a bit of moral ambiguity right through the finale, but it doesn’t seem to fit with Jean’s other actions.

In the end, BLUE JEAN offers a central character and a dilemma that we don’t often see. Some hazy aspects detract from others that are admirably specific and distressingly real.

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