IN the annual process of handicapping the races for the Golden Globes and Academy Awards, one inevitable variable in every calculation is the voters’ taste in political movies. If a director happens to be telling a story about a minority group that ends sadly but with plenty of reassurance that the bigotry we see on screen is safely in our collective past, and if that movie is well-acted and well-directed, some portion of the odds shifts in the project’s favour.

And while the Golden Globe nominations that were announced on Thursday definitely feature plenty of nods for sober, handsome movies about dead civil rights figures, I was delighted to see the Hollywood Foreign Press Association anoint as a contender Pride, a heartfelt comedy about Britain’s emerging gay rights movement and its support for a Welsh community living through the miners’ strike that gripped the United Kingdom in 1984 and 1985. Pride differs from other Best Picture nominees in that some of the characters in the film are based on people who are still alive. And as a comedy, while movies like Selma and The Imitation Game are competing for the drama award, Pride is a vital reminder that stories about civil rights can be joyful rather than tragic.

Pride picked up just one nomination, for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, which may not be a good sign for its chances. Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which chronicles the 1965 voting rights marches, picked up nods for Best Motion Picture — Drama, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Original Song. The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum’s biopic of Alan Turing and his work at Bletchley Park during World War II, is also a Best Motion Picture contender, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, who plays cryptographer Joan Clarke, are competing for acting trophies. Screenwriter Graham Moore and composer Alexandre Desplat were also nominated.

Movies like these make the fight for civil rights seem like a desperately grim task. That’s an appropriate nod to the historical weight of institutional homophobia and structural racism, of course. And this tone also serves to appropriately elevate people like Turing, who tried to live with integrity even as he was demeaned and sentenced to inhumane treatment, or leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who stood up to racist officials and civilians.

But in their rush to communicate the specific gravity of these historical struggles for justice, period movies about politics often forget to communicate something important: that fighting for your dignity and equality can be galvanising and heady. And finding your people after years of isolation can be a tremendously joyful experience. As Dai (Paddy Considine), a Welsh union leader, tells the London members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, who had thrown a fundraiser to help the families of striking coalworkers: “To find out you had a friend you never knew existed, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

There are sad moments in Pride, of course. For Gethin (Andrew Scott), his partner Jonathan’s (Dominic West) embrace of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners feels like a betrayal, given the harshness Gethin experienced from his own family when he came out. Joe (George MacKay), a closeted teenager, finds both an identity and friends in his miners’ support work but rejection at home when his parents discover that he is gay. And Maureen (Lisa Palfrey), a narrow-minded Welshwoman who is the movie’s worst-drawn character, exhibits rigidity and cruelty.

The balance of the movie, though, is hopeful and energetic. Sian (a terrific Jessica Gunning) starts Pride as a young wife and mother who is initially unsure of what contribution she might be able to make in politics. But with the encouragement of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, Sian takes up a leadership role in the strike committee and eventually pursues a college education. She is now a member of parliament.

Jonathan Grimshaw, who in the film has become politically disengaged, is reinvigorated by the strike: In real life, he is alive 30 years after his HIV diagnosis and continues to work as an educator and advocate. The kindness of miners’ families helps Gethin reunite with his own mother, and the upbeat energy of gay men and women gives Cliff (Bill Nighy) the courage to come out to his best friend, Hefina (Imelda Staunton).

Legal, social and economic equality for members of minority groups is certainly serious business. But rather than telling participants in these fights that they must martyr themselves to make a difference, Pride is a reminder that activism can be a sustaining and vital activity. As newly minted activist Joe tells his friends, “It was the best experience of my entire life.”

—By arrangement with The Washington Post

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2014