High Hopes

The life and times of an extended family in 1980's London.

Director Mike Leigh is probably the closest the UK has to Woody Allen: and like Allen his films go from absolute classics to barely watchable. Here he is about as good as he ever will be - indeed there are scenes from this movie that are, in there own way, as profound and original as anything that has been put down on film.

Who else would let the camera linger on the face of an old woman just at the point of losing her sanity? Or dare to present a couple going nowhere as the centrepiece of a feature film? Or even present "success stories" (a yuppie couple) as rank and selfish? Here lower-middle-and-upper crusts are clowns, it is only a matter of levels and angles.

Indeed, Leigh never gives us anything to cling to. Nor does he want to present hope that things will change for the better. Take the central couple Shirley and Cyril (Philip Davies and Ruth Sheen). Why are they living like squatters in their own tiny flat? Why can they not buy a proper bed (they sleep on the floor) or look for somewhere better - after all they both work? Apart from the question of a child (she wants - he doesn't) they both seem happy to live in squalor. In Shirley we at least have someone who cares for other people.

The old lady - through which the story is told - is on her last legs as regards living an independent life. The house she lives in has become neglected and the area she lives in no longer contain her type of people. Her neurotic daughter is so wrapped up in her own suburban life that she does seem to realise her mother is at the point of collapse. The scene where she holds a birthday party for her aged mother is agony - not for her confused mother - but for us the viewer.

Some of the performances are a little of the top (Leigh's films let actors improvise) and I could have lived without so much of the melancholy music track that rubs everything in. But this is the only film since One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest that lets humour and tragedy sit side by side without blinking.

Director Leigh gets under your skin and takes you places we haven't been on film before - but I am not sure they are places I would want to go on a regular basis. He is a one-off, but I am secretly glad about that.

The title of Mike Leigh's first film was "Bleak Moments" and he's been having them, on and off, ever since. Leigh's films are the comedic equivalent of the Theatre of Cruelty. The pain running through a Mike Leigh movie far outweighs anything 'funny'. You wonder why they are called comedies at all. And the pain is usually the pain of belonging to a family unit. In "High Hopes" the family unit is Edna Dore's almost catatonic London pensioner, her appalling daughter Valerie and her equally appalling husband Martin and her son Cyril and his partner Shirley. Dore's next-door neighbours are a couple of Sloane Rangers with a double-barreled name and if Leigh has a fault it's that he can't help lampooning Valerie and Martin and the snooty neighbours. (Valerie is a clone of the awful Beverly in "Abigail's Party"). These are cartoon characters and they don't ring true.

However Dore, who does virtually nothing, is quietly magnificent as the mother whose life has evaporated in front of her eyes and Philip Davis and Ruth Sheen are heartbreakingly real as the socialist son and the woman he loves but not enough to give her the child she craves. Indeed, Davis and Sheen give the kind of performances that seem to transcend mere 'acting' and which in a just world would be showered with prizes. (Sheen and Dore did win European Film Awards). In fact, everyone is first-rate even the caricatured neighbours and the lamentable Valerie. An uneven work, then, but when Davis and Sheen are on screen it's as good as Leigh gets.

Mike Leigh's bittersweet social satire dissected with devastating accuracy (and a sometimes heartbreaking sense of humor) the widening gap between the haves and have-nots in Margaret Thatcher's England, moving from transparent criticism to crass parody to, finally, a touching plea on behalf of the elderly. It's a gray little film, giddy and depressing all at once, although often as funny (and just as striking) as hearing fingernails scraped down a blackboard. Leigh's cross-section of British society rings true even at its most exaggerated, and his ear for language, whether mumbled Cockney slang or nasal upper-class snobbery, is pitch perfect.

The film is essentially a showcase for some wonderfully defined characters: marginalized counterculture Marxists Cyril and Shirley; Cyril's ultra-neurotic middle-class sister and her vulgar salesman husband; an infirm old mum; a pair of callous upscale neighbors; and an odd, occasional houseguest named Wayne. The plotting is furtive: nothing much happens over the course of the film, giving the cast plenty of room to stretch out in their roles. The characters and story lines were created by the entire cast through extensive pre-production rehearsals, but the finished film is remarkably cohesive, with acting so natural it could easily be mistaken for improvisation if it weren't so well written. The result is a film of rare and genuine emotion: it's either the gloomiest comedy ever made or a tragedy with no shortage of laughs.

This is a magnificent film full of humour, dignity and tragedy. The two most compelling characters are the hirsute courier, Cyril, and his gardener girlfriend Shirley, socialists both, who have an ongoing, symbolic debate about whether to have a baby or not. In the meantime - no pun intended - the courier's mother is dying - tired, losing her short term memory, and lonely. Other important characters include two appalling yuppies - caricatures only if you had your eyes closed in 80s Britain - plus the courier's nouveau riche but working class sister and her misogynistic husband. Karl Marx's sad big head at Highgate cemetery also makes an entry into the film.

Mike Leigh is a wonderful talent - long may his film-making continue! Postscript: Great news the film is now available on DVD - see http://www.hopscotchfilms.com.au!

The paragraph describing this film said it was about a group of people who come together when Mum locks herself out. This is misleading as that is only a small part of the film , there is much more to it than that, I saw this film as part of a Mike Leigh feature on TV.

I straight away recognised Philip Davis who also stared in Mike Leigh's 'Grown Ups' even though it was 20 years earlier that I had seen that. He looked very similar but his character, Cyril was much better tempered than Dick had been. Cyril and his partner Shirley are the only ones who seem to care about poor old Mum. They are also kind hearted enough to help out a stranger who was lost and confused. Her other daughter Valarie appears to care more about her dog and her own life. The toffee nosed couple next door would rather leave the poor old women standing out in the cold when she locks herself out and don't want anyone to get in the way of their life.

This film lets us see that having money doesn't always mean happiness. Cyril and Shirley are much more contented than their richer neighbours and sister. They are also much less selfish. I would rather have them any day