Meantime

An accurate portrait of a family. So touching, there is solidarity behind these harsh dialogues. So funny. It might appear dull, mean, but there is a real human meaning behind it. The old brother tries to educate the younger one who is a bit of a pain one must admit. Watching that film made me feel good, it showed that through mean times there is still something good left in people, poverty creates also solidarity. Something that you don't find so easily in higher social classes. Tim Roth steals the show as the inimitably brilliant Colin Pollock (even the name conjures up an image of backwardness) - and if you ever need proof of the raw talents of a great British actor, watch this film back-to-back with Made in Britain.

The writing is sharper than a knife and in no way is this a gloomy film, and a number of characters introduced for comic effect, the council housing officer. Clichés are nicely avoided at all stages. "Meantime" is a rough and gritty portrait of a dysfunctional council estate family with very little hope for the future, yet the film refuses to wear down the viewer simply by being very funny.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

'Meantime' is a modernist masterpiece, closer to Antonioni than Loach, all the more remarkable for having been made on TV, and transcending the incidentals of portentousness, contrivance and misogyny. Leigh doesn't simply record the monumental, faceless, soulless tenements that dwarf his characters, as a social-realist would: he allows them to shape his narrative, a rigid, static series of concrete tableaux. Leigh doesn't reduce his characters to caricature (a complaint often levelled against him) - Thatcherism does, by removing all those things - hope, work, dreams etc. - that mark humanity and individuality. As bitterly angry and funny as 'Naked'.

I'm a big fan of Mike Leigh's gritty films, and 'Meantime' fits well into his admirable canon. He examines the lives of 'ordinary people' unlike any other filmmaker I know. Here, his microscope (forget the lens) is on a NON-working class (perhaps proletarian without the peasant's earth) family in 'estate' housing in the wretched suburbs of London.

Once again, as in all his films, Leigh, using his well-known improvisational rehearsal-and-execution technique, receives razor-sharp performances from his cast. At the centre of this work are two simply superb performances: Phil Daniels as Mark and Tim Roth as his mentally 'slow' younger brother Colin. Anyone who has had a sibling will recognize the evolution of the relationship between these two. It's universal in its reach.

Splendid acting abounds and carries 'Meantime'. As the parents, Jeff Robert and Pam Ferris are all-but-tactile with their sizzling frustration and rage. Gary Oldman as a deeply disaffected youngster is wonderful. A very brief scene where he rolls in a barrel, mindlessly banging it with both hands, is both riveting and disturbing.

The quibbles I have with this film are perhaps minor to some, but of concern to me. One is Andrew Dickson's music. Is that a zither playing in an Egyptian carnival dance band? It is initially just jarring, but then it becomes downright annoying and intrusive.

I quite frankly could have used subtitles in 'Meantime'. Whole sentences just went past me. It's necessary for the stark social realism of Leigh's settings, but for non-Londoners, this can, at times, be rough going. I listened to fragments of this dialogue and it became an exercise in linguistic irony: these characters live in the country where the English language was BORN.

Doesn't matter; it's still a great and very moving film.

This is Mike Leigh's finest film. Next to this masterpiece his later feature films feel very contrived, it just flows beautifully. It's also very honest, the best depiction of the effects of unemployment I've ever seen on film. But of course as with all Mike Leigh's films it's all about the performances of the actors and they're all pitch perfect. I feel a bit sorry for Tim Roth, his first film role and without a doubt his greatest, how could he ever equal it, it was all downhill from here. A truly heartbreaking performance and if you're not moved by it then you have no empathetic feeling. I also particularly like the performances of Jeff Robert and Pam Ferris as the Mum and Dad. It's a tragedy that this film missed out on getting a theatrical release since it was a few months after it was finished that Channel 4 began shooting on 35mm with a view to feature film distribution. Because it's a 'TV' film it's unjustly ignored in comparison with Leigh's later films, but don't let that put you off, this is a masterpiece. The music is beautiful as well perfectly matching the mood of the film.

The trusties of English working-class life (of misery). It sounds (and looks) depressing, but turns out to be more entertaining than one would imagine; after all, this isn't a Ken Loach film. The reasons why it's good are the usual ones in a Mike Leigh film; interesting characters, excellent acting from the entire cast, and well thought-out dialog. Roth is particularly good, and shows all the Hanks's and Di Caprio's how mental retardation is really supposed to be played. The film gets better as it goes along, and all's well that ends miserably. The film could have been titled "No Hope, Hand Me The Rope". Generally, one should check out Leigh's early movies; the ones up until the late 90s.