High Hopes (1988)
Country: GB
Technical: col 112m
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Philip Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré, Lesley Manville, David Bamber, Philip Jackson, Heather Tobias
Synopsis:
A couple living in a flat near Kings Cross look around them at the societal realities of Thatcher's Britain, try to cope with the bloke's elderly mother and deranged sister, and find hope where they can.
Review:
One of Leigh's portraits of a dysfunctional family, building to a cringing climactic birthday party in the manner of Secrets and Lies, this is a little less certain in tone compared with later, more assured work. The attempt to provide representations of frustrated communist leanings, upper class gentrification of the mother's council terrace and naked capitalist greed in the shape of the brother-in-law leads to some of the director's coarser characterisations, with the misanthropic vitriol at times overwhelming the humour. All the same, this was in many ways the film 80s Britain deserved, and in Cyril and Shirley we all but have the forerunners of Tom and Gerri in Another Year.
Country: GB
Technical: col 112m
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Philip Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré, Lesley Manville, David Bamber, Philip Jackson, Heather Tobias
Synopsis:
A couple living in a flat near Kings Cross look around them at the societal realities of Thatcher's Britain, try to cope with the bloke's elderly mother and deranged sister, and find hope where they can.
Review:
One of Leigh's portraits of a dysfunctional family, building to a cringing climactic birthday party in the manner of Secrets and Lies, this is a little less certain in tone compared with later, more assured work. The attempt to provide representations of frustrated communist leanings, upper class gentrification of the mother's council terrace and naked capitalist greed in the shape of the brother-in-law leads to some of the director's coarser characterisations, with the misanthropic vitriol at times overwhelming the humour. All the same, this was in many ways the film 80s Britain deserved, and in Cyril and Shirley we all but have the forerunners of Tom and Gerri in Another Year.
Country: GB
Technical: col 112m
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Philip Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré, Lesley Manville, David Bamber, Philip Jackson, Heather Tobias
Synopsis:
A couple living in a flat near Kings Cross look around them at the societal realities of Thatcher's Britain, try to cope with the bloke's elderly mother and deranged sister, and find hope where they can.
Review:
One of Leigh's portraits of a dysfunctional family, building to a cringing climactic birthday party in the manner of Secrets and Lies, this is a little less certain in tone compared with later, more assured work. The attempt to provide representations of frustrated communist leanings, upper class gentrification of the mother's council terrace and naked capitalist greed in the shape of the brother-in-law leads to some of the director's coarser characterisations, with the misanthropic vitriol at times overwhelming the humour. All the same, this was in many ways the film 80s Britain deserved, and in Cyril and Shirley we all but have the forerunners of Tom and Gerri in Another Year.