Blue Jean

Jean is a physical education teacher in England in 1988, living a carefully divided life. At school she presents herself as a respectable colleague, while on weekends she goes to gay clubs in Newcastle with her girlfriend, Viv. The Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher has just passed legislation restricting the discussion of homosexuality in schools, so anyone learning the truth about Jean could cost her the job she depends on. When a student turns up in one of the bars Jean frequents, her two worlds threaten to collide, and she must decide how far she will go to protect herself.

Blue Jean is a British drama directed and written by Georgia Oakley, her first feature film; Sense and Sensibility, which she directed later, follows it. Rosy McEwen plays Jean Newman, with Kerrie Hayes as Vivian Highton, Lucy Halliday as Lois Jackson, Lydia Page as Siobhan Murphy, Becky Lindsay as Jill and Maya Torres as Mindy Singh. Hélène Sifre produced, and BBC Film, the BFI, Great Point Media and Kleio Films were among the production companies behind the 97-minute film.

Released in early 2023, the film drew strong notices from critics, whose rating of 8 out of 10 from 115 reviews sits above its audience scores of 7 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 6,700 votes and 6.8 out of 10 on TMDB. That gap suggests reviewers responded to the film more warmly than general viewers did.