''The Pass'' is a 2016 film starring

Russell Tovey Russell George Tovey (born 14 November 1981) is an English actor. He is best known for playing the role of werewolf George Sands in the BBC's supernatural comedy-drama '' Being Human'', Rudge in both the stage and film versions of ''The Histo ...

and

Arinze Kene Arinze is a given name and a surname. Notable people with the given name include: *Arinzé Kene (born 1987), Nigerian-born British actor and playwright * Arinze Stanley Egbengwu (born 1993), Nigerian artist, activist, engineer, and entrepreneur * A ...

. It was directed by

Ben A. Williams Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, ...

, based on a play by John Donnelly. The film is about a relationship between two men who are English

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

players, and how their lives unfold over the course of a decade. The film was nominated at the 2017

BAFTA Awards The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...

, in the category of Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for John Donnelly and Ben Williams.

Plot

Nineteen-year-olds Jason and Ade have been in the Academy of a famous London football club since they were eight years old. It's the night before their first-ever game for the first team — a Champions League match — and they're in a hotel room in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. They should be sleeping, but they're over-excited. They skip, fight, mock each other, prepare their kit, watch a teammate's sex tape. And then, out of nowhere, one of them kisses the other. The impact of this 'pass' reverberates through the next ten years of their lives — a decade of fame and failure, secrets and lies, in a sporting world where image is everything.

Cast

as Jason *

as Ade *

Lisa McGrillis Lisa McGrillis (born 3 September 1982, Cheltenham, England) is a British actress. Early life and education McGrillis grew up in Scotby, near Carlisle in Cumbria with her mother, a special needs teacher, and her father, an accountant. She studie ...

as Lyndsey *

Nico Mirallegro ' Nico Cristian Mirallegro ( ; born 26 January 1991) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Barry "Newt" Newton in the soap opera ''Hollyoaks'' (2007–2010), Finn Nelson in ''My Mad Fat Diary'' (2013–2015), Joe Middleton in ...

as Harry *

Rory J. Saper Rory Jonathon Saper (born 3 April 1996) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the film ''Rufus (2012 film), Rufus'' (2012) and the series ''Find Me in Paris'' (2018–2020). Early life Saper was born in Slough to parents Camilla ...

as Bellboy

Reception

As an independent feature, the film received a limited screening, primarily being shown around the world at film festivals. The film had a special screening at London's BFI Flare Film Festival, in correspondence with their celebration of

LGBT cinema This article lists lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender-related films involving participation and/or representation of LGBT. The list includes films that deal with or feature significant LGBT issues or characters. These films may involve LGBT ...

. ''The Pass'' holds a 93% approval rating on review aggregator website

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, based on 13 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

of 7.1/10. The film holds a score of 66% on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' gave it three out of five stars and said "

gives a layered, career-best performance in an intense interior drama that never quite shakes its theatrical origins". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave it four out of five stars and said "Its stage roots show through at times, but this story of homoerotic tension between two youth team players is well made and acted".

Release

The film premiered at BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival on 16 March 2016 and was released in the UK and Ireland on 9 December 2016. The film was released on DVD and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

to stream online in the UK in April 2017. The U.S. premiere for the film was on 7 July 2017 at the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles. In 2018 it was announced that The Orchard had picked up the film for U.S. distribution and will release it on 8 May 2018.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pass, The 2016 films British LGBT-related films British association football films LGBT-related drama films 2016 drama films 2016 LGBT-related films LGBT-related coming-of-age films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films