High Hopes (1988 film)

High Hopes
Directed by Mike Leigh
Produced by Victor Glynn
Simon Channing-Williams
Written by Mike Leigh
Starring Philip Davis
Ruth Sheen
Edna Doré
Philip Jackson
Distributed by Skouras Films (USA release)
Release dates
 24 September 1988
Running time
 112 min
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Box office $1,192,322[1]

High Hopes is a 1988 film directed by Mike Leigh, focusing on an extended working-class family living in King's Cross, London and elsewhere.

The film primarily examines Cyril (Philip Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), a motor-cycle courier and his girlfriend, along with their friends, neighbours, and Cyril's mother and sister.

Despite staying true to Leigh's down-at-the-heel, realist style, the film is ultimately a social comedy concerning culture clashes between different classes and belief systems. According to the critic Michael Coveney', "As in Meantime, High Hopes contrasts the economic and spiritual conditions of siblings. And in developing some of the themes in Babies Grow Old and Grown-Ups, it presents a brilliantly organised dramatic résumé of attitudes towards parturition and old age."[2]

Plot

Cyril is a strong, old-style socialist, who despairs of his elderly working-class but Tory-voting mum; her new yuppie neighbours, the Boothe-Braines (who have purchased what was once a Council house next door); and his social-climbing sister and her crass, car-salesman husband. Cyril and Shirley are portrayed as the most decent characters in the film, despite Cyril's irascible nature. Theirs is a strong relationship, marred by Cyril's reluctance to have children and his resentment that his cause is destined to be on the losing side in history.

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=highhopes.htm
  2. ↑ Michael Coveney, The World according to Mike Leigh p.189

External links