High Hopes

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!

Of course the marketing people hype every movie like it's a cross between "Titanic" and "Wedding Crashers" but there is such a thing as a small lovely film and "High Hopes" is it. It's a comedy but nobody passes gas or accidentally drinks urine, so it's a cut above any comedy produced in the U.S. during the last thirty years. It's just about people, working class people in London trying to get by. But its got a good heart and the smiles it provides will stick with you longer than the brain-dead belly laughs strained over in Hollywood comedies. It just feels like real life. The actors don't seem to be acting. And you end up pretty hopeful regarding the human condition.

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

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.

Released in 1988, this is Mike Leigh's (director of Vera Drake) sublime comedy which examines the social climate of 1980s London.

I really liked this film, it centres on one extended family living in London during the Thatcher years. Cyril is a Marxist, who does despite his strong values and views chooses not to act on them, giving the world up for a hopeless cause. His partner, Shirley, desperately wants a baby, despite Cyril's strong views that the world is already "over-populated". Living in the last council house on a now yuppie infested road is Cyril's mum. A member of the generation who has been forgotten, she is slowly losing her marbles, much to the distaste of her neighbours. And as for Cyril's sister, Valerie, who lives in the social climbing climate of the middle class, she has seemingly to forgotten her roots and family ties, no doubt due to her excessive drinking of cheap champagne and her leeching husband.

This film is a brilliant gem of 1980s British cinema, despite its clear socialist values (it's cartoonish portrayal of the rich and yuppie somewhat softens the blow of its left wing message), it brings up so many interesting questions in an intelligent manner, portraying all its characters from a variety of angles and political stances, its hard not to like Cyril, but when he criticises a young 'active' Marxist follower for planning to open a market stall, he is shown to be hypocritical.

Leigh' doesn't just direct, but also write, and the script is water tight. It is extremely witty, just full of emotion and very down to earth.

This film is a very good snap shot of life in a variety of social situations and views in the churning world of the 1980s as the capitalistic London really began to boom. It is a flick that will not doubt have you smiling from cheek to cheek, yet also leave you feeling emotionally vulnerable and self-questioning.