It would have been really easy for Pride to have been a preachy, feel-good movie with a caveman message of "Gay rights good! Bigots bad!" (not necessarily wrong, but it would have made for a pointless and overall bland movie). Thankfully, save for a couple of scenes straight from the inspirational movie handbook, it avoids these clichés and instead focuses on the characters involved in this unusual alliance between gay rights activists and a small-town of unionized miners and the strength of its spectacular cast (especially Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy) that carry both the characters and the movie. Watching the gay rights activists struggle for acceptance and the small mining town being forced to reconsider what they believe in are equally as interesting and again helped by the amazing cast which are able to deliver both humorous and dramatic moments, although the movie underplayed the dramatic moments by not going into detail which, in my opinion, hurt the effectiveness of those scenes. Then again, maybe I am just a masochist. Overall the movie is able to avoid many of the pitfalls movies similar to it have fallen victim to and be pretty compelling as well.
