High Hopes

source: High Hopes

High Hopes

I found this film embarrassing - no sophistication, absolutely no subtlety; it does not stand the test of time. The relationship between the two leads is OK - but the over-acting done by the sister, her husband and the people next door made me cringe. The supposed under-acting by the mother was nearly as bad - but I blame that on the director - spelling it out that he's not spelling it out for us. It is all so obvious - one is surprised it was made by an experienced director - it is like a classroom assignment from a group of 16 year olds. And all those fake working-class accents - I grew up in Essex and I lived in Bethnal Green for 10 years and I never heard anyone speak like that. The music is wonderful but far too loud and in your face. On the plus side, I loved the ending - maybe I'm sentimental after all.

It is amusing but really rather silly much of the time. I loved the end when the couple from the old flats take the mother up on the roof after her 70 old party that of course was a terrible time, or funny. There is something of the past to see Marx and talk of the revolution, the times of Thatcher's days and also the yuppies. Indeed the upper-middle class couple really is just a pantomime although with the old mother it is sad for her locked out of her own house and they really just what to get her out of theirs. Their children, of course, are no better how really just what to get on with their own, and thinking about their silly party.

Edna Doré's birthday is coming up. She's a feeble old widow living in a house in a gentrifying bit of London. We encounter her posh neighbors, her Marxist son, her upwardly mobile sot of a daughter, their partners, a couple of neighbors, and a guy wandering around looking for a job. Mostly she seems out of it. It's a movie written and directed by Mike Leigh, which means, in this period, that it doesn't seem to have been written at all, just an assortment of people who run into each other and and act awkwardly with each other, like the Method actor's advice: don't act, behave. But how do you behave when it turns out you don't kow how to behave? It doesn't appear to be a story, except that it is, centering on Miss Doré's son, played by Phil Davis, and his live-in girlfriend, played by Ruth Sheen. It's a beautifully realized relationship. I guess that's how Leigh wrote it.

I love Mike Leigh movies. They are not to everyone's taste but there is something about the way he gets the actors interacting that i find fascinating. High Hopes though , is my least likable of his films. We see the same actors crop up in this as we do in most of his films. Ruth Sheen , Phillip Davis and Edna Dore are good but unusually , Leslie Manville is very poor as the posh totty. There is a lot of overacting in this film and that is not usual for a Mike Leigh film but it is one of his early efforts , so it's forgivable. I had high hopes for high Hopes but sadly it quite happened.

A melancholic comedy, and a social commentary on Thatcher's Britain for those unsupported. There isn't really a story at any point, the plot just unfolds to develop the main characters. Not particularly funny, other than an embarrassing nostalgia, but heavy in irony, and certainly only suitable for an audience who are fans of dry humour. Acting is superb from the leads, but the film as a whole is rather limited.

This is early Mike Leigh before he achieved that perfect balance in tone between critical and affectionate that distinctly marks his best films. Consequently, while there are wonderfully observed sad and funny bits (like the visit to Karl Marx's grave and the way the Marxist couple treats the lost waif in search of his mom) the main set pieces soon descend into undue caricature (the Yuppie couple in the gentrified housing block) or nastiness (the mom's 70th b-day party). Give it a B minus if only for Ruth Sheen's warm hearted performance that would foreshadow Alison Steadman in the later, better "Life Is Sweet".

A seemingly quaint period piece that articulates eternal issues. All the characters are so real I wondered if they were based on people I know, as I lived near to kings cross at that time. I now realise these characters are modern archetypes. Did mike Leigh invent the archetypes? The film making itself is so understated that I wondered if I was watching reality TV! The device of the opening character , to lead us into the lives of these characters is a stroke of genius! I always approach Leighs films thinking 'worthy but boring', but time and again he has me crying and laughing and everything in-between. This film will only get better with time.

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.