Set during the 1980s, this is a story of love, class, sex and money. Young gay Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) an Oxford University graduate student moves in with the rich conservative family of his best straight friend Tobias "Toby" Fedden (Oliver Coleman). He becomes part of the family and also part of the gay scene. Nick has his first romance with black council worker Leo Charles (Don Gilet), and a later relationship with Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham), the son of a rich Lebanese businessman. There is an unbelievable party scene at the Feddens where Nick persuades Margaret Thatcher to dance with him, much to the delight of the crowds. The film shows Nick's euphoria of falling in love to the tragedy of AIDS. Framed by the two general elections which returned Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative government to power, the film unfurls through four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. The ending is abrupt.
This three-part mini-series for BBC Two was broadcast in 2006. It's a sophisticated social analysis, not a funny, typical gay story. Sex and drugs mix, love ends by social pressure and ignorance and everything begins to be overshadowed by HIV. It is sad to watch and most of the characters are unsympathic and unlikeable. Nothing that seems perfect in the beginning stays that way, rather the reverse. "The Line of Beauty" is a 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. It was adapted by Hollinghurst and Andrew Davies. Original music was composed by Martin Phipps. Saul Dibb directed. The title has many meanings, ranging from Nick's company name Ogee taken from the sinuous double curve cited by Hogarth, to a line of cocaine, to a man's lower back.
