God's Own Country — Blue Fairy Film Blog

Films centering around LGBT characters have historically dealt with the harsh realities of the queer identity: ostracization, abuse, sexual assault, AIDS, disenfranchisement, and prejudice. The most popular gay male romantic film of the past twenty years followed two cowboys who only found peace high in the mountains during the 1960s-1980s and feared violence for being who they were. Fast forward to 2019, a year where the president is a white supremacist who wants to do gay, queer, and trans folks harm and it’s hard to find stories about being queer or trans that aren’t wrapped in societal strife. While we have a better range of choices for our gay love stories, and there are ground-breaking movies and television shows coming out every day, God’s Own Country feels more significant than anything I have seen in a long time.

The story starts in Yorkshire with the Saxby family. Johnny (O’Connor) is a sullen gay twentysomething who is stuck working the family farm after his father (Hart) suffers a stroke. His grandmother (Jones) helps as best as she can but she is just another mouth to feed. Though he wishes to leave the rolling hills of his homeland he is trapped, so he goes out every night until he becomes sloppy drunk, screwing a local gay single occasionally. So enters Romanian farmhand Gheorghe (Secăreanu), a young man who brings tenderness and love into the home for the first time in a long while. While breeching lamps in the spring season the two men fall in love, Gheorghe showing Johnny how to love and be loved for the first time in his life.

The major selling point of the film is that it’s a gay story that doesn’t highlight the difficulties of being a gay couple. A much bigger aspect of the story involves British xenophobia towards immigrants, which was the major reason for Brexit. Much of the physical violence seen in the film happens because Gheorghe faces constant racism, from Johnny initially and then at a local pub. Yorkshire provides a gorgeous scenic landscape for much of the film, all rolling verdant hills and windswept trees. There is a feeling of being absolutely alone in the wild tall grasses as the characters stand at the summit of their insular world. The film is also quite accurate in that it shows real farm life, including scenes of actual animal births. Director Francis Lee (this is his directorial debut) worked his family farm in Yorkshire growing up and he is also gay.

This film has seen worldwide critical and commercial success because it tells a traditional story about having to grow up quickly in a world that throws everything at you time and time again. Johnny Saxby is a familiar character, one who must understand his own shortcomings in order to do right by his family and keep the love of his life. It’s a story about maturity, an attribute that is becoming harder to attain in a world where burnout culture is the regular topic of conversation amongst millennials and “adulting” is a common verb. It’s nice to see a male character go through this transformation while shedding toxic characteristics and finding queer love.