High Hopes (1988 film)
| High Hopes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Mike Leigh |
| Produced by |
Victor Glynn Simon Channing-Williams |
| Written by | Mike Leigh |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Andrew Dickson |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Edited by | Jon Gregory |
| Distributed by | Skouras Films (USA release) |
|
Release date
|
24 September 1988 |
|
Running time
|
112 min |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,192,322 |
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."
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.
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