Very much a political commentary on the disenfranchisement of youth and accurately summing up the feelings of the under 20s at that time, if not the reality.
The film was made just after the nation had suffered 'The Winter of Discontent' the final humiliation of the disastrous socialist government that had destroyed the aspirations and job prospects of a generation. This also led to the famous election of the far-right Thatcher government at the same time, but, they had not been in office for long enough to affect the approach of the film.
I saw the film at the time it was first shown, and being a punk and having a father that was a trade union leader at the time, much of what was portrayed in the film was familiar to me.
Although the film was very much trying to be a 'grim Northern realism' film for the 80s (and set in the south at that!), it was pure fantasy - things were never that bad, and it's easy to get depressed about situations that are portrayed as every-day occurrences that either never happened or were rare. The scenes of race riots are particularly overstated.
The music of the film, however, is it's strongest area. It is absolutely of its time, and completely representative. It is so classic that "In the beginning..." was being played in a country pub that I was in only last week (9/99) nearly 20 years later. What followed was 'New Wave' with 'Duran Duran' and others - what a disaster!
Given the slow degradation of the main character over the duration of the film, it is interesting to see what happened the the actress who played her (Hazel O'Connor) in real life. Life imitating art?
