Paul Oremland | Like It Is / 1998

recognizing the real

by Douglas Messerli

 

Robert Gray (screenplay), Paul Oremland (director) recognizing the real

by Douglas Messerli

 

Like It Is appears today as a very under-estimated view of the British worlds of the dark record-making days of the 80s and 90s in London that meets up strangely but inevitably with the even darker and violent world of bareknuckle fighting in Blackpool. Yet despite the fact that neither of its leads, Craig (Steve Bell) who plays a bareknuckle fighter (which was his true profession before making this movie), nor Matt (Ian Rose) are happy with their careers, they are locked in nearly as slaves by finances and the forceful men behind the money, Minto (Paul Broughton), the fight promoter in Craig’s case, and the sleazy, openly gay manipulative record producer Kelvin (Roger Daltrey), the co-founder and lead singer for The Who, one of the greats of rock ‘n roll, who later also performed as Tommy in Ken Russell’s film production of the Who’s musical opera (1975)— whom I saw like-in-concert in suburban New York in 1969—and later as Franz Liszt in Russell’s Lisztomania (1975), making it clear from the beginning, despite some commentators' wonderment, that he was perfectly willing to take on gay roles such as the campy queen he enacts in Like It Is.

      The other evil force in Matt’s life is his roommate, Paula (Dani Behr), the singer whom he has personally molded into a popular star. Theres is a non-sexual relationship with nonetheless, all the jealous protectiveness of an intense straight relationship that both she and her manager Kelvin want to maintain.

    Accompanying Paula on her appearance at a gay club in Blackpool, Matt meets the young fighter Craig. They hook up and go home, Craig demanding that Matt fuck him. Yet we also quickly perceive that this is Craig’s first sexual encounter, and his still very much a confused young man, clearly attracted to men, but not at all sure that he wants to go through with the sexual action and its implications. He suddenly leaps up, proclaiming that he cannot continue, pounding the wall in frustration, demanding Matt leave. Matt does so, leaving his London calling card behind.

     In the meantime, Craig wins his fight, leaving his opponent for what appears to be something close to dead. Craig’s older brother, Tony (Chris Hargreaves), trying to look after Craig, attempts to dissuade him from his role as a fighter, but the uncommunicative, obviously resentful young brother refuses to fully engage with him. But when his manager (Minto) suggests his next opponent, Craig insists he is a maniac whom he refuses to fight and immediately decamps to London, showing up with expectation that Matt will take him in.

   In many ways, a troublesome and still hot-headed fighter showing up suddenly on a London street, couldn’t have come at a worse time for Matt, who has just been promised by the manipulative Kelvin the possibility of running his own club if he only first helps edit and promote a new pop group ZKC (which reminds me of the group Milli Vanilli, who dancer/choreographer Karole Armitage once somewhat frustratedly told us over the dinner table, she was helping to learn how to dance) and still helping to keep the decaying career of Paula alive. Yet Matt invites Craig into his and Paula's apartment and to share his bed. The two now finally do have sex and Matt falls desperately in love, which the possessive Paula fully resents.

      Still naïve and totally trusting of a world he should be more than a little wary off, Craig is convinced to become a waiter in a gay club since he is desperate to get off of Matt’s couch all day long and bring in some money of his own. But it is a disaster when he meets up with homophobic customers who call him a queer and demean the scene they have willingly entered into, forcing the short-fused Craig to put his fighter skills to use by beating up the thug, but losing him his job as he is tossed into the streets. Despite the fact that Matt is in the midst of an important cutting session for the ZKC tape, he rushes to Craig’s side, while angrily scolding him for his actions.

      A furious Kelvin dresses Matt down for running to his “boyfriend,” but pretends a great deal of graciousness by inviting both to his party that weekend, meanwhile demanding that Matt bring him the completed tape by 9:00 the next morning.

      At the party, filled with young women and men desperate to remain in Kelvin’s corrupt music circle, all about drinking, while the still highly clueless Craig is corralled by Kelvin, who promises him a job, in a purposeful attempt to split up him and Matt, traveling in a sporty blue car in northern England to buy up, along with other young men he's hired, Paula’s records to increase her ratings. Even more evilly-minded, he arranges that the now quite drunk boy be taken home by Jamie (P.J. Nicholas), one of the members of ZKC, with whom Matt has previously had a brief fling. Craig wakes up confused to find himself in bed with Jamie, without even remembering any sexual encounter with him.

     But still blindly, he moves forward, driving off in his lovely new car to Northern England, calling on a cellphone (that I don’t quite remember existing in 1998). He and the others succeed quite nicely in their job, helping to promote the mediocre Paula, who knows her career is nearly over.

     When Craig attempts to call on other occasions, Paula simply reports that Matt is out or unavailable, and fails even to pass the messages on to him, much to his own worry and disconcertion about what has happened to his lover.

      Finally, he is challenged with one more major project arranging the music awards show with ZKC and Paula both singing. At that very moment, Craig returns, himself desperate to see Matt again and enjoy his company, this time with fresh money in his pocket. But Paula locks herself away in the bathroom, refusing to come out to sing; Matt wins her over and gently leads her to perform; while also discovering that Jamie has slept with Craig before leaving on his travels.

     In a sense, it is all too much for either man to deal with in one fell swoop, particularly when Craig discovers Jamie and Matt in a locklip with table a of cocaine spread out before them. Finally, recognizing that it has all been a delusion, Craig rushes back to Blackpool while Matt finesses the performances which will continue for a short while to feed Kelvin’s empire. It’s enough to make any emphatic viewer break down in tears.

     But New Zealand born director Oremland, does not go the route of sentimentality, having already shown in his 1986 short film Andy the Furniture Maker just how able he was to deal with rough and tumble characters such as Craig. Craig takes his crooked boxing manager’s advice, and agrees to the match.

     Meanwhile, Matt also learns from his trusted assistant Gloria (Jude Alderson) just how duplicitous Paula has been, and breaks with her. On the very night that his dream-club is about to open, he suddenly perceives what he truly wants, saying goodbye to Kelvin, who once again attempts to convince him how much they are alike and how Matt needs this club to sustain his life. But Matt too has changed in all of this, as difficult as Craig has been to care for, now realizing what really matters.

     Letterboxd commentator Zachary Binx quite humorously summarizes the problem:

 

“What is one to do when an in-the-closet, bare(back) knuckled fighter arrives at your door? I mean besides the obvious. You've got to teach him and raise him and culture him, but of course he's young and full of internalized homophobia and has a very strong fight or flight response. It's a conundrum many an older guy has dealt with, but it's still a lot of work even for really hot bussy.”

 

     Yet, he finally gets up the nerve to tell Kelvin to “Go fuck yourself,” to which the endlessly campy and now a bit over-the-top Daltrey loudly replies: “I frequently do, and fucking enjoy it!”

     Eventually Matt gets in touch with Craig’s brother Tony, who upon seeing and talking with Matt finally puts the facts together, angry with himself for not earlier recognizing that the real problems with his brother and his perpetual distancing had to do with his being gay. He shouts out, “He could have told me,” but, of course, in such a society that have been an impossibility. Fortunately, Tony is completely sympathetic and attempts to arrange a reunion with Craig with Matt. But the now bitter and angry young man refuses, not even permitting Matt entry to the match, as he waits outside in a car to perhaps make contact with his former lover.

      The fight is a brutal one for both men, but Craig loses after a bloody and brutal beating, as Tony and Matt struggle to simply get him back on his feet so that they can carry him off to the hospital. The truly evil Minto reappears with large pile of money, with irony proclaiming that this was Craig’s best fight, since apparently he had invested all of his money he’s earned from Kelvin betting against himself and has now won big time.

      The two, Tony and Matt, carry him off to the doctors and it appears Craig is now read to try out a new relationship with Matt, free perhaps at last from all of his previous demons. Both men surely realize they will have to make new lives for themselves, but for the first time they will be utterly free to do so, without the restraints of men who love to control just such talented boys as they are.

      True, this film was made on a miniscule budget and netted hardly anything at the box office. But it doesn’t look or seem like a cheaply made feature, and, as most critics of the day agreed, Bell, a newcomer, was quite excellent in his role.

     I loved this film, and think it is now one of the near-lost greats of that wonderful last decade of the 20th century that openly explored so many tough subjects that later got lost in the sudden conviction that all of gay life had changed. Somethings had changed, but not sufficiently that we should have lost sight of the major problems the LGBTQ+ community was still facing. Fortunately, several directors did not buy in totally to the new buoyant optimism, and explored just those problems in the 21st century as well. And we now witness some of the possible conservative backlash, particularly within the transgender community. Alas, we must soldier on with our recognition not only of where we are just alike the straight world in which we live, but how we remain so very different, how, as this film’s title suggests, it really is.

 

Los Angeles, October 21, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026). / 1998