Peter Viney's Blog

Amazon Original Movie, 2021
Amazon Prime from 17 September 2021
(Cinema release also)

Directed by Jonathan Buttrell
Screenplay by Tom MacRae
Based on the stage musical by Jonathan Buttrell, Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells

Music by Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells

MAIN CAST

Max Harwood – Jamie New
Lauren Patel – Pritti Pasha
Sarah Lancashire – Margaret New, Jamie’s mum
Shobna Gulati- Ray, Margaret’s friend
Richard E. Grant- Hugo
Sharon Horgan- Miss Hedge, Jamie’s schoolteacher
Samuel Bottomley- Dean Paxton, who bullies Jamie
Ralph Ineson – Jamie’s dad

Or “Sex Education: The Musical.” It’s released the same week as Series Three of Netflix’s Sex Education series. It’s thematically similar, though considerably less explicit, less hard-hitting and not as funny. You can even match the characters pretty well. The exuberant gay lad, the ethnic (here Muslim) female bestest friend ever, the homophobic (but here, barely threatening) alpha character who ends up repenting, the sympathetic mum, the absent uncaring dad, the school teacher imposing rules. I guess Richard E. Grant’s proprietor of an emporium for drag queens is the different one, as well as the one featured in the articles on the film. I doubt that production values and costs were much different. In Sex Education Episode 3 of series 3 they have about 200 kids dressed in the new school uniform flooding into the school and filling assembly.

They are both High School movies, with oddball / outcast central characters and bullies.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is nearly twice as long, but the musical numbers account for the difference, even though several were cut from the stage musical There’s less plot too, because Sex Education has to keep several running sub plots going. As an ongoing series, Sex Education has the shorthand advantage that we already know all the characters before we start on an episode. In many ways, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie serves to show how very good Sex Education is.

The reviews consensus is a preference for the 2017 stage musical of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, but with this sort of thing, it will always be the case that live theatre wins. I never saw it. They compensate in the film with two extraordinary sequences: the film on Work of Art in B&W and the long flashback montage on AIDS and legalisation of homosexuality. Both visual highlights.

It says This actually happened, which seems to be the tag line on virtually every new film on Netflix or Amazon. What’s wrong with fiction? The comparison made this time is to Billy Elliot, but while there are similarities … this one is working class Sheffield rather than County Durham … I consider the skills and dedication involved in becoming a top level dancer considerably exceed the skills needed to walk around in a frock and high heels. I’ve done amateur pantomime dames myself, though my interpretation was more clod-hopping Les Dawson with a bad wig rather than drag queen Danny La Rue. That’s a little harsh, as La Rue and other performers also sang, danced and acted … but that was the very top end. Often miming takes the place of singing.

The plot is thin and predictable. I’ll avoid too much plot spoiling. Jamie New is just sixteen, and dreams of being a drag queen. He admires his teacher’s high heels.

His best pal is Pritti Pasha, who complains that her parents gave her a Hindu first name and a Muslim second name. The actress playing her is Lauren Patel … so Pritti + Patel? With a name like that she could become Home Secretary. Pritti has a headscarf and large glasses (to make her look dowdy) and like Jamie is the butt of jokes, but she is going to be a doctor. Her role here though is submissive and supportive female sidekick to the glamorous male. Think male and female peacocks, perhaps.

His mum presents him with very large red sequinned shoes (an obligatory Wizard of Oz / Judy Garland reference) for his birthday. His dad has left to live with new wife Cheryl in a nicer area. Ralph Ineson’s stubble and accent shout “It’s grim up north!” and he has rejected his son. Mum pretends birthday cards and a £50 note are presents from his dad. He is the apple of his mum’s eye. In general, very few in the film (His dad, and the lads with Dean are the exceptions) show bigotry towards his life choices.

Jamie finds the drag queen clothes shop, run by Hugo (Richard E. Grant with a Russell Harty accent). Hugo was a drag queen in the 1980s and agrees to mentor Jamie and find him an essential drag queen name, Mimi Me. Jamie works hard to save up to buy the clothes and waits to wear them bravely, to a club. Hugo helps him with make up and styling. Incidentally, the words transvestite and homosexual are not exact synonyms which is suggested by the storyline. Though Jamie says that he’s gay, he is not seen in a relationship.

The school prom is an (undesirable) American import into school life, and when Jamie does a drag show before, the school homophobes turn up to jeer (being far less violent than Adam in Sex Education Series One.) Miss Hedge (played by the always entertaining Sharon Horgan)is reasonably enough against Jamie’s plan to turn up as a drag queen at the prom, not because she disapproves, but because that will put all the focus (friendly or unfriendly) on him (Mimi Me, of course) and it should be everyone’s night. It all ends happily, but we knew it would.

The music is an area where everyone returns to the stage production. The Richard E. Grant song is new for the film. Holly Johnson sings the song to accompany the collage. The music has been praised, though to me it sounds mainly generic Disney stage show … interestingly, the movie was commissioned by Disney originally, then abandoned after the Disney / Fox merger, and sold to Amazon when Disney divested itself of a group of films and series with gay topics. I thought songs well done by actors, but few of them sounded as if singing as their main job.

It IS entertaining. We both enjoyed it, but as we watched Sex Education the night before AND the night after, it pales somewhat in comparison. Sex Education – Lite?

Still, three star: ***