MOVIE · 1996

Beautiful Thing

ComedyDramaRomance92 min

On the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, a long, hot summer pushes three teenagers toward adulthood. Glen Berry and Scott Neal are neighboring boys whose friendship starts to shift into first love, bringing questions of identity and coming out into the tight spaces of family life and estate gossip. Linda Henry is the single mother at the center of one crowded household, and Tameka Empson adds another outspoken teenage presence in the background. The film stays rooted in cramped flats, shared bedrooms, street-corner talk, and Mama Cass songs drifting through a 1990s London summer.