Blue Jean

It’s a powerful, cerulean-tinged debut from filmmaker Georgia Oakley with timely reminders about the toll of systemic bigotry—the same kind that can be seen today with gender panic.

Blue Jean’s real power comes from its examination of the human costs of living in fear.

The triumph of Blue Jean is that it takes time showing the queer lives at stake. This is not a dour film. It has hot lesbian sex, sweaty snapshots of queer bars, and, ultimately, portrays the power of community.

Aside from its smart writing and grounding in real-world stakes, Blue Jean also has courageous performances. McEwen as Jean is exquisitely torn, giving an impressively internal performance that eventually spills over.

What I like is how this movie does not got where it might ordinarily have. It walks a more narrow and human path.

Understated and feels very lived-in.

What makes Blue Jean so memorable is not just McEwen’s stellar performance but the delicate balance between a plot that moves like a thriller and the beautifully nuanced approach to secondary characters like Jean’s sister.

Rosy McEwen gives a phenomenal performance in Blue Jean, the Thatcher-era drama that marks the exceptional debut of British director Georgia Oakley.

Oakley treats everyone affected with compassion, portraying them as stronger than the forces that seek to shame and ostracise them, even if they don’t realise it yet.

Oakley’s incredible debut expertly manages to hold a mirror up to society’s continued failings through the lens of a victim falling prey to the internalised homophobia that is prevalent in the very fabric of our lives